NaNoWriMo

I know it's still 6 months away, but I figure blogging here on occasion and writing daily at 750words will hopefully train me for NaNoWriMo.

For those of you who don't feel like clicking on the link, you lazy individuals, it is a month long contest in which participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. You may be wondering how many words one must write a day to keep a pace that will help them finish in time. The answer is 1,666.67. I know that seems like a lot, but I bust out the 750 daily in an average time of 12 minutes, so doubling that will be equal to about half an hour. In theory, that should be easy. I don't have any novel ideas in mind at the moment, but I've got half a year to brainstorm. 

I was wanting to run a marathon this year but Boyfriend told me that those are things people train many, many months for, sometimes even a year. And I'm still new to this whole running thing. So in an effort to accomplish a significant feat in 2011, since a marathon is not in my feasible realm of accomplishments, I have signed up for NaNoWriMo and will be putting my literary skills to the test this November. 

Besides, mental exercises require far less physical output to master than physical feats :P

...deeply solidified in cement made of gumption

I've been writing this blog for a little over three months now. Yay, commitment! Granted, April has proven to be the  most productive of those three, with nearly half of my postings occurring in this month alone. But it definitely takes a while, especially for someone who procrastinates as much as I do, for habits to be formed and then deeply solidified in cement made of gumption. 

I find that if things don't have deadlines, I'm pretty much thoroughly incapable of completing them in a timely manner. Even when things do have deadlines, I am hard pressed to finish them on time. I'm thankful that for the most part, my life has no deadlines at the moment. I set deadlines for myself, but I usually give in to them and just do whatever I want anyway. Haha. I'm really bad at telling myself I'm going to do something and coming through with the wherewithal to make it happen. I don't think I've ever used wherewithal in a written sentence. I'm not even sure if I used it correctly there. 

I think I've finally gotten over my hesitation to post anything if it didn't explicitly have to do with Chicago. Although the original intention of this blog was to document this new adventure in my life, I think now I will permit myself to post things that are completely unrelated to my move/life in the Mid West. In all actuality, the people who read this are probably the ones who would listen to anything I have to tell them, regardless of whether it was related to Chicago or not :P 

So from here on out, I will no longer be afraid to post blogs that are "off-topic" because as leader and ruler of this blog, I do hereby declare that anything goes! :)

However, in an effort to slowly wean myself off solely Chicago related posts, here is a picture of my drive home tonight. The skyline gets me every time.

It is, Brother. It truly is.

This post isn't at all Chicago related, but it's something that made me laugh. And think. And I maybe can find a few places to squeeze in references to Chicago :P

My little (I guess 22 isn't so "little" anymore) sister, who I usually refer to as Brother, and I have a unique relationship. We can talk without talking. We find many of the same things amusing. We share a ton of similarities (though we clearly have our differences) in an almost twin-like way. 

Growing up I kind of morphed into this older sister/third parent role. I'm not quite sure why I evolved into a  kid who responded to the word, "Mom" but I did and as a result I have always felt a lot older than Brother, even though we're only 4 years, 3 months, and 1 day apart. It may be a result of our personalities, or maybe we babied her growing up. But one thing is for certain, no one can make us laugh like each other. 

Brother is girly-er than me and often experiments with various makeup and hair products so when I ran out of curl cream this morning, I knew just who to call. She recommended one and gave me a few tips on how to handle the few strands of hair I have that are refusing to be wavy like the others. Normally, I would encourage such behavior out of my hair. However, I have discovered that in Chicago, the old saying "April showers bring May flowers" holds true and as a result I have refused to straighten my hair for the past three weeks or so because I can't justify doing all that work just to have it frizz up the moment I walk out the door. It's definitely helpful to have someone who shares my DNA and can assist me and relate to my lifelong battle against wild Hungarian Jew-fro hair. 

I then proceeded to tell her how the girls I nanny for bought this product today: 

Specifically in this design:

And this is the part of my story that is probably only funny to us. I said to her, "It reminded me exactly of that dehydrated baton we have." And she knew precisely what I was talking about. We then went back and forth about how visually appealing and enjoyable that dehydrated baton was. 

The dehydrated baton wasn't always so dehydrated. In its prime, the baton was a beauty. It was the same length as a standard baton, but instead of being made of a solid material, its center was filled with water that was home to the most pleasing glitter you'll ever lay eyes on. We literally spent hours (Cumulatively, not consecutively. We weren't that weird.) staring at the baton, turning it over and watching the glitter gather together in clumps as it floated down from one end to the other. I don't remember exactly when this wondrous toy came into our possession, but I know it was mine and it probably appeared earlier than my 10th birthday. I also know I never used the baton for actual baton-ing purposes. It was always only used for gawking and staring. 

On the phone as I referenced the dehydrated baton that was now full of clumpy glitter, Brother just made some half-words and noises that completely spoke to me and made sense. We didn't have to really talk about the baton because we both knew what the baton meant. We both knew how majestic it was. We recently saw the baton when I was packing my things to move here and we sat and looked upon it in awe, just as we did when we were kids. I remember asking her if I should throw it away, since half its water had inexplicably evaporated even though the rubber ends of the baton are impossible to remove. We looked at each other and without speaking, knew that there was no way we could ever willingly part with the baton. It was just...the best. It reminds me of my childhood and makes me happy whenever I think about the way the glitter would fall together, collecting more and more pieces as it descended to the bottom of the baton. 

Apparently Brother feels the same way, because shortly after we hung up, she posted this on my Facebook:

And the caption read, "It's beautiful."

It is, Brother. It truly is.

:)

Hah. Hahahahahahaha. Heeeee, hooooo. Haaaaaa

I hit a major milestone today. Well technically yesterday. I always get a little confused when it comes to discussing days because my life clock does not run on the same schedule as everyone else's. It's 1:43 (technically Friday) in the morning right now but I still consider this day to be the end of Thursday because I haven't gone to bed for the night from waking up on Thursday day. Does that make any sense at all? In actuality, the day of the week in no way impacts the happenings of my major milestone so all this blabber is really for no good reason. Hah.

Back to the original topic: My car hit the 100,000 mile marker! Well technically it hit 230,760, but to me that is 100,000 miles. It made me think about where I was in life 100,000 miles ago. Hah. Hahahahahahaha. Heeeee, hooooo. Haaaaaa. Ohhhh, man. If 100,000 miles ago, which was January 22, 2006 to be exact, you would have told me that this would be my life, I would never have believed you. 

Allow me to provide you with a brief list of attributes about where I was in life 100,000 miles ago. 

• I was a young, 21 year old spring chicken. I was just a month into my twenty-first year when I bought my car. My first non-embarrassing, non-smoke-pours-out-of-the-hood-when-I-stop-at-stoplights, non-geriatric, non-built-in-the-1980s car. 
• I was single. Very single. It was coming up on 2 years since I had last had a boyfriend. 
• I was working full time at a self storage company, making way more money than any 21 year old needs. 
• I was getting ready to finish my last semester at RCC before (hopefully) being accepted and transferring to Cal State San Marcos to pursue my B.A. in Liberal Studies.
• I had been a vegetarian for 3 months :P

For those of you who enjoy numbers, chew on these facts:

• I drove to and from San Marcos roughly 400 times for a total of approximately 21,000 miles.
• I drove to and from Huntington Beach roughly roughly 300 times for a total of approximately 18,000 miles.
• I drove to and from Las Vegas once for a total of 425 miles.
• I drove to and from San Antonio once for a total of (at least) 3,000 miles.
• I drove to, but not from, Chicago once for a total of 2,104 miles.

These are all low-ball estimates and alone they tally up to 44,500 miles, so you can see just how much I have driven in the past five years and four months.

The following is a list of some of the major events have occurred during the past 100,000 miles:

• I completed both my Bachelor's degree and my Multiple Subject Teaching Credential! :)
• I went through 7 different jobs. 
• I've moved 6 times.
• I met three of my four besties at CSUSM.
• I've taught over 100 students.
• I went over 4 years without eating meat.
• I took a whirlwind, 42 hour trip to The Windy City where, in a bar, I met and danced with the most gorgeous boy I've ever seen.
• I relocated from the only city I'd ever known in Southern California to Chicago, Illinois.
• I couldn't be happier :)

One hundred thousand miles ago, I could never have imagined that this is where I'd be and I pretty much still have one of those, "Wow, this is really my life?!" moments everyday. But in a good way. A very good way. 

Last Monday, I nearly pooped my pants

Last Monday, I nearly pooped my pants. For real. Not because of an inability to control my bowels, which is a reality I've faced more often than I'd like to admit, but because of the physical reactions that happen when my fight-or-flight response is triggered. I'll expand on that. 

If you know me, or have read any of my previous blogs, you know I suffer from Scelerophobia, which is a fear of robbers/bad men. Or more specifically in my case, a fear of robbers, rapists, basement monsters, murders, torturers, home invaders, slashers, sadists, etc. (I probably should have listed murders, who are real, before the most likely, non-existent basement monsters, but...meh.) At least 3-4 times a week, something happens here at the house (usually a scary noise or when the front porch light that is on a motion sensor turns on seemingly unprovoked at 1 in the morning) when I am alone that causes me to frantically text Boyfriend or call a family member, or in intense instances, both. Monday was definitely a "both" day.

I was in the kitchen, getting things ready to make dinner when all of a sudden I heard the back door, more specifically the storm door, fly open very loudly and then slam shut!!

A storm door, for my West Coast readers, is essentially a screen door made of glass that resembles this: 

(My storm door, however, was seemingly built during the Middle Ages and is decrepit and rickety and only has half of its indoor handle left and looks nothing like the above picture. )

So there I am in the kitchen, my sympathetic nervous system cranked into overdrive, heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through my body, breathing fast and shallow. And I am faced with a choice. Do I continue to stand there, frozen in the middle of the room, an easy target for my attacker to ambush at any moment? Or do I gather the seemingly-nonexistent-but most-likely-just-really-deeply-buried-courage from the dark abyss of my soul and defend myself? I realized I had a large and somewhat heavy plate in my hand that could be used as a weapon so I marched over to the kitchen door and looked through the window into the utility room that leads to the back door. 

But then I realized that the glare from the kitchen light was too bright and was preventing me from peering into the unlit utility room. There was only one solution: I'd have to turn off the lights and face my attacker in the dark. *Insert feeling of pants crapping here* It took me a few seconds, but I realized I was in a life or death situation and once I again I summoned that courage from the depths of my being. I flew over to the light switch, turned it off, and quickly returned to the kitchen window to get a visual my home intruder who was most likely ready to bash my skull in at any moment.

And out in the utility room I saw...

.

.

.

nothing...

Only the sight of the storm door, blowing in the wind. And I stood there and watched as it flew open and slammed shut once again, just as it had done when I thought I was for real being intruded upon this time. I tried to make the door latch, but as I mentioned, it's missing half of the inner door handle. So for the rest of the night I had to listen to the door crash and boom and bang and slam as it pranced about in the swift Chicago breeze. Boyfriend felt really bad that I got so scared and said we could buy new ones soon. Oh, the new fears the MidWest is inducing within me. Add "Phobia of Doors Blowing in the Wind" to my list :P

Boo number two

Today was a long, slightly draining day at working that consisted of picking both of the girls up early from their schools and taking them to their dentist appointment that was quickly followed by an emotional and physical breakdown/tantrum/fit that the 12 year old was gracious enough to perform in my presence. It was over math homework, over the question: 6 miles = ______ yards, to be precise. There was door kicking, pencil breaking, which was quickly followed by pencil throwing, to name a few, with bouts of "I HATE YOU!!!" being screamed in her mom's general direction in the home office. 

This type of behavior never happens when it's just me there. And that's not at all to say that I have better control of the kids than their parents do. It's just that at the first inkling of that type of behavior, all it would take is the threat of me calling one/both of their parents to make them stop. But since their mom was home, watching this volcano of emotion erupt in front of us all, I was unsure how much disciplining I should be doing since the situation had never presented itself before. In the end we (the mom, the 9 year old, and I) just barricaded ourselves in the home office and let the 12 year old throw her fit alone, paying her no attention. She finally wore herself out to the point of tears and then just cried until she felt better. I know that age isn't exactly an easy one to go through, but having emotional explosions like that doesn't make anyone's life easier. And it makes me question whether or not I ever want to have kids myself, haha. 

I left their house around 7:00, feeling quite drained. I had a Costco trip planned since I needed to refill my protein bar stash and a new bag of Fruit and Nut Medley was definitely in order cause I was down to the banana chips, raisins, and kiwis that I really didn't care to eat, which made me wish we had a compost pile or worm bin so I could throw my unwanted morsels in there to be turned into food for my plants, but I don't know if those things are even compost-able? I hope so. 

I went to a different Costco than I normally shop at and was saddened to see that it didn't have a gas station. Boo. And then when I walked inside I found a baby tree that I fell in love with:

A Weeping Cherry Tree! Absolutely gorgeous! But then I was saddened again when I read the info on the plant and realized that, while we have a very decent size backyard considering we live in Chicago, this tree would grow far too wide for our narrow city lot. Boo number two :( 

I finally ended up getting home a little before 9:00 and was exhausted so I relaxed with my daily perusing of CNN, People.com, and Facebook, where I left Boyfriend the following message:

"I've loved you for approximately 150 days now. That's a lot of days. I feel like I deserve a prize or something :P xox"

And wouldn't you know it, Boyfriend came home from work early, less than an hour later, a Butterfinger with a bow on top in hand. My prize :) That simple gift was enough to turn my whole day around. Love, love, love that boy. 

Excited doesn't even begin to explain how I'm feeling

So 26 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, and 1 day ago, I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

This is a Google Maps screenshot of my first home on Tusitala St, Honolulu, Oahu. 

Less than two months later, we moved to California and there I remained until December 26th of last year. 

Now, in less than two months, I'll finally be returning to the "motherland". 

May 19th, please come quickly. But not too quickly. I need time to get skinny before then :P 

Excited doesn't even begin to explain how I'm feeling!

...a la Three Little Pig style

The weather was absolutely gorgeous on Saturday. It was warm, slightly breezy, and just perfect. I had been keeping my eye on the forecast all week and had great expectations for yard work in the afternoon before we had to leave for our date. The night before, I had mentioned to Boyfriend that we should, preferably sooner rather than later, tear down "The Shack", as I called it. "The Shack" was what used to be a screened in deck off the back of the house that Boyfriend's grandpa built years ago. Eventually the screening ripped, so more screening was staple gunned on. Then some louvered windows were added. Then there most have been a point where the porch became too cold for them so his grandpa put up some huge sheets of what looks like the lovechild of cardboard and plywood. And then finally on top of that he applied 1-2 layers of plastic sheeting. If you've been paying attention, that's 5-6 layers. There was also a healthy amount of duct tape used around all the edges of the plastic sheeting, so let's just say there were about 6.5 layers of material that needed to be removed from the frame work. Most of the plastic sheeting was so old and weathered that it was just flaking off in tiny pieces, littering the floor with what looked like bad snow from a movie set. 

Speaking of the floor, it had its own set of layers consisting of plastic sheeting that was attached the the framework in one huge piece, followed by more plastic sheeting that was laid on top, that was underneath some of those hard plastic mats you use to roll office chairs on top of, which was underneath 2 layers of various mismatched outdoor rugs. That's another 5 layers. So far we're up to 11.5 layers between the floor and the walls. 

And then came the wood used for the framework. Oyyy. A good 50% of the screws had been stripped during the construction of the porch, making them next to impossible for Boyfriend to remove. And each post had, you guessed it, multiple layers of planks flanking it. Add to all this 4 ice chests, an electric radiator, a snow shovel, a broom, a large umbrella, a 7 tiered storage contraption, a 6 foot ladder, 3 buckets, and a table. All of this on an approximately 8x8 porch. I'm exhausted just typing it all out. Haha. I'm also really bad at giving too much detail when I tell a story :P

We finally made it outside around 1:00ish, so we had a good 2.5 hours or so before we needed to get ready to go. Boyfriend decided to attack the shack while I worked on another project. Last weekend , we did some much needed trimming of the apple trees in our backyard. I'm not sure how old they are but they definitely had not received much attention in years. They were completely overgrown and parts of the them had died. 

Here in the Chicagoland area, Waste Management doesn't provide green bins for yard waste as I am accustomed to back home. Here in the Chicagoland area, you have to bundle all of your yard waste that is bundle-able. Bundle. As in like, a bundle of sticks, a la Three Little Pig style. In my head I wanted them to look like this:

but instead they looked something like this:

This is obviously not my backyard but it definitely resembles the six bundles of sticks I put together. While wearing shorts. Not the brightest idea but I was so excited to wear them after a seemingly endless winter here at the North Pole. I then dragged the bundles into the alley behind our house, which is where we put our trash, which is also so weird to me. 

And while I bundled sticks, Boyfriend made the shack go from this:

to this:

Such a BIG difference! We're going to replace all the doors and windows that lead out to the deck. And we also need to repaint. And clean and stain the deck. And make sure all the posts are secure. And rent a dumpster so we can throw all the debris away. There's enough scrap here to make a whole new shack :P

So far, I'm really enjoying every aspect of my pseudo-homeownership! :) 

Hope it gives you beep

I feel like blogging, but in list form tonight. Haha. 

1. I'm actually writing this blog before midnight but I'm not going to post it until then because I don't like having more than one entry per date. That is stupid and completely inconsequential but two blog posts on the same day is not visually appealing to me. I have such bizarre preferences/likes/dislikes.
2. Today is my parents 29th Anniversary! I'm sad I wasn't home to help them celebrate it but I called my dad tonight and told him that for their next anniversary, I'm hoping to have enough money to send them on a cruise to Alaska :) I've got a whole year to save up :P
3. I love my job. Today during my down time between shuttling kids places I had enough free time to plan out my flower garden. I made a chart of which plants grow to be the tallest so I can plant them in height order. It was very satisfying to get this all mapped out and I'm thankful that I have enough freedom at my job that I can do things like that!
4. Tonight on my dinner outing with the 9 year old, she was telling me about her family's recent cruise and how one night there was karaoke and she was thinking of singing the song (in her words) "Hope it gives you beep". And at first I couldn't think of what song she was talking about. So she started to sing it. She was referring to All American Rejects' Gives You Hell. She sang the whole thing, but whenever the lyrics were hell or damn, she literally said "beep". It was so cute watching her censor herself like that. One time she accidentally said hell and apologized profusely. I just laughed. It's so interesting watching the inner workings of kids' brains.
5. Our new pet frogs are doing really well. Bossy One has decided that he absolutely loves to hang out in the leaves of the bromeliad flower and today Boyfriend had to chase him out of there so he would actually come eat when I sprinkled their vitamin powder covered fruit flies in their tank. They're fun to watch and even though we've only had them for 5 days, I love them :P
6. I'm absolutely addicted to Kirkland brand Fruit and Nut Medley from Costco. Omg, yum. Though I find myself picking out the strawberries, apples, and walnuts first. I wish I was brave enough to just reach my hand into the bag and just eat whatever I pull out but I'm not normal enough to not thoroughly inspect every bite of food before I eat it. Weirdo.
7. I'm super excited to take Boyfriend on a date this weekend. I'm 99% sure he doesn't read my blog so I'd probably be fine in revealing the secret location here, but just in case, I won't tell. I will after Saturday. I'm sure I'll want to blog about it :P 
8. Tonight I drove home from work on the freeway highway with the waist tie for my coat hanging out the door the entire time. I actually do this quite frequently. But it happens to be raining right now so my waist tie is completely soaked and it smacked me on my leggings covered legs up the front steps to the door of the house and I couldn't figure out what was soggily colliding with me. I am a bilo.
9. I'm super cute and left Boyfriend a love note on his car at work last night. Wednesdays usually end up being long days for him and he had to go in an hour early for a meeting with his boss. I figured I'd be the most amazing girl ever and leave him something to put a smile on his face when he got off work. How adorable am I? :P

Nine things is probably enough for people to read in one sitting. So I'll leave it at that. Also, yay for three consecutive days of blogging! I'm on a roll! Winning!

How to defend yourself against basement monsters

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm trying to be better about blogging on a more regular basis, and so far, at least for this week, I'm succeeding :) It's not that blog-worthy adventure waits behind every turn in my life, but I do enjoy writing and lord knows I need something to do at night until Boyfriend comes home :P It's not like I don't have an entire house that needs packing, cleaning, unpacking, organizing, decorating. Haha. Oh, sweet procrastination. 

Ah, crap. I just remembered that I needed to do laundry today but now that the sun has long since set, that means the basement monsters have come out of their hiding places, hoping that I'll descend into their musty lair so they can consume my squishy body and toss my licked-clean bones upon the pile of other unlucky souls who have come before me. I need some type of weapon to defend myself against the aforementioned basement monsters. Someone should really write an article on the proper basement monster slaying technique because these aren't exactly the returns I was looking for when I Googled: "how to defend yourself against basement monsters". 

I really wish I could find it within me to not be so creeped out by the basement. But it smells funny and and the light switch is illogically located requiring me to walk into the basement and around a corner to turn it on. I suppose I'll try with this, too. Try.

In other news, things are going really well at work. I got a phone call today from the mom just to say thank you for being such a big help in their lives and that I'm very much appreciated, which is always great to hear :) Last night when I was driving the 12 year old to basketball practice she asked if I would stay for the whole thing. I told her her mom would be picking her up. Then she said, "I wish you were my mom. You're more fun." To which I responded, "Sweetie, if I was your mom, you wouldn't think I was fun, I promise." Haha. Then she said she wished I lived with them as their au pair (she's taking French class so she's familiar with the term :P). I told her that while I am from a different state, I'm not from a foreign country, as is typical of au pairs, and also she's 12 and doesn't need live in assistance. But it's definitely nice to know that I'm well liked. 

I've been looking for teaching positions for the 2011-2012 school year but working for such a great family makes it hard to want to leave. If I am fortunate enough to land a job, I hope it's at a school whose contract hours end early enough for me to still work for the family, though I logically know it'd be nearly impossible to accomplish such a feat. I'm still hopeful. So far this year has been full of fantastic events and occurrences so it could happen! And despite the fact that I'm 2,000 miles away from my friends and family, I'm unbelievably happy here. 

But seriously, friends and family, feel free to visit anytime!! :)

**UPDATE**
Shortly after writing this post, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps (literally. I was wearing my cowboy boots today) and I bravely ventured down into the basement to get the laundry started! I even considered calling my dad so he could keep me safe somehow over the phone, but realized that if I did that then I'd never grow out of my fear. I did regret descending the dark stairs without a weapon in hand, but I turned on the flashlight app on my phone and made it safely into the depths below. I'm happy to report there were no sneak attacks by rouge basement monster ninjas who were lurking in the shadows, though I do believe I sensed their presence :P But I just channeled the energy of the almighty honey badger (click, click, click that if you haven't seen it! Sorry, Mom, for the cussing in the video :P) and I survived unscathed. Yay, me!!

I definitely need an intervention

I seriously can't believe it's already April. April! And nearly a week into it, at that! I realized today that this time last month I was home for the weekend in California. I just want to grab time by the shoulders, give it a good shake, and tell it to slooooow down. And while I lament about the rate at which this year is passing me by, I'm actually thrilled that Chicago is considerably less like the North Pole now, weather wise. 

This past Sunday it was a ridiculously warm 76 degrees! Omg, so nice. We spent a good chunk of the afternoon doing yard work, which is something I always pretended to be physically incapable of doing whenever my dad needed/asked for help (sorry, Zolika!). Yard work is definitely different when: 1) It's your own (well, Boyfriend's) home that you get to take pride in, and 2) You HAVE to do it because your dad isn't here to do it for you! :P And if you don't do it, it doesn't get done! On Sunday I was actually sad when we had to stop working because we had dinner plans with Boyfriend's family. Haha. And I'm not gonna lie, I'm actually really excited that this coming Saturday is the only day it's not supposed to rain this week because it means we'll have more good weather to work out in the yard again! Is this what adulthood feels like? Finding happiness in sunny days because it means I can pull weeds and trim trees and prepare soil for transplanting my vegetable garden? Or am I secretly an old, geriatric woman? I think it may be a combination of both.

Speaking of plants, I have recently developed a problem that I may need professional help to be cured of. While I've never been a huge shopper, I've developed an addiction to buying plants. And vegetable seeds. And flower seeds. And flower bulbs. And plant tubers. No joke, I have over 30 different types of vegetables growing. I have over 15 varieties of flowers waiting to go in the ground until I'm sure we're past the last frost. Assuming I just grew one plant from each of those seed packets that would be nearly 50 plants. But of course I can't plant just one seed. Oh, no. 

For example, there are two flats, each with 72 peat pots (that's 144 total, in case you're anti-math), full of various vegetables sitting atop the radiator in the dining room right now. And atop the radiator must be the optimum growing conditions because seeds that were supposed to take 10-14 days to germinate were up and sprouting through the surface, reaching for the sun, in less than 5. Seriously. We have baby snow pea plants that are nearly two feet long now. They're clinging on to one another with their little tendrils, looking for something to cling to as they anticipate the day when they can begin their vertical ascent. **Note to self: Take pictures of crazy radiator garden.** I'm so obsessed with all things herbaceous that I'm even buying Boyfriend "presents" like Bok Choy seeds and Hosta root balls. 

I definitely need an intervention. Help!