More exciting happenings

Is it weird that stories like this make my eyes water? I'm thinking that I'm pretty proud to be a part of the Houston SPCA volunteer team.

As an update to Lois, she is finally flowering. And stinking more.

And stay tuned for a photo update of our summer travels. I know my posts have been sparse and random (ie. trees? corpse flowers? animal stories?).

Blooming Lois

There's always something exciting happening in Houston, and right now we have the largest flower in the world blooming at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, less than a mile from our house. Fascinating. It was projected to bloom last weekend, but hasn't yet! It'll be the 29th flower of its kind ever to bloom in the U.S.

Temporary Home

This song makes me cry every time.

I am not ashamed. :)

It's good to be reminded that this life that we live is merely a speck in time before we spend eternity with our God.

Our Overcup Oak

14 months ago I brought this tree home from an Earth Day giveaway at work:

Here it is now! It's growing fast!

Recycling

It's the little things in life that make me happy.

Our condominium complex just put a recycling bin next to the regular dumpster. Hallelujah! Easy access recycling. I have been moping around for the past 4 years kicking myself for tossing aluminum cans and plastic in the trash. Realistically, all I had to do was set aside a separate bag or box for recyclable items and then drive them over to the nearest recycling center. My excuses included the following:

- too lazy
- not enough space for extra bag/box of trash (this could be solved by having a garage or utility room but we have neither)

These excuses amount to nothing. Think of all the plastic and aluminum and glass I could have recycled. My father would keel over knowing how much we simply dumped into the trash. He in fact did scold me once or twice but the horrid excuses above rang loud in my head.
Thankfully, we've at least been faithful recyclers of paper and have taken frequent trips to the various paper recycling bins around town.

But now, we can dump even our paper into the recycling bin in our own complex. I feel I will now change the world.

Recycling is really an easy, effective way of doing your part in reducing the massive amounts of trash that goes into landfills every day. So don't follow my example of making excuses. There are NO good excuses not to recycle.

Even the Grand Canyon recycles. Our cabin had separate trash cans for recyclables and non-recyclables. This, indeed, enhanced my Grand Canyon experience.

Whoop!

I'm not an Aggie, but I almost was, and it felt right.

I couldn't be happier. Moorhead's blueberry farm opens this weekend. I won't be in town this weekend, but you can betcha I'll be picking blueberries the following weekend!

Hello, blueberry bliss!

Berries

I was tipped off by reading a blog post from our friend and talented painter, Sarah Hazel. For the rest of the day, all I could think about was blackberries, just within walking distance from our condo along the buffalo bayou trail. I can't believe in all these years, in all the countless times I've run past this field, that I've never seen these wild blackberries. Well, better late than never!

Here are the results from an approximately 1-hour picking. What to do? Maybe a pie.

Blueberries will be ready for picking soon! This will be our 4th annual blueberry picking extravaganza! Can't wait!