Best thing I've ever heard.

So, the craft room's up. 

And apparently open for business.

But I can hardly be mad since Bubba, the owner of these fine shorts that sorely need ass-mending, also turned this nightmare...

Into this...

MAKE THE BULLSHIT GO AWAY. THAT IS MY WISH.

And since he is awesome and even though it's not even my birthday month anymore, away they went. To I do not care where.

But speaking of birthdays, I had one. In the country this time.

And I approve.

We actually use our dining room here. It's very grown up feeling when I'm making happy faces with my bacon which happened right after I took this photo.

So, if you ignore the WT neon ski fence placeholding for the forthcoming railing our hilarious contractor is building, you can maybe enjoy the future awesomeness of our patio table under this beautiful oak that will have twinkle lights or mini lanterns hanging from it. But you have to ignore the WT neon ski fence first. Good luck with that.

Our neighbors have chickens. 

Lots and lots of fluffy pants having chickens that do not yet know how much they like being cuddled. BUT THEY WILL KNOW.

Jada had her way with our neighbors' dogs' toys during our first visit to their house. Because she is a lady.

This is not our view. It's our neighbors' view. But it's a goodie and we will enjoy very much sitting on that lovely deck getting drunk for many weekends to come.

Also, these neighbors are British and they own a fryer and they make fucking "chips". YES. PLEASE. And then they do things like say, "Have a chip buttie!" And then I say,  "And just what the fuck is a chip buttie?" and they go, "Well, it's just this thing we Brits do where we butter some soft french bread and stick 'chips' in the middle and that's that." And I say, "YES. PLEASE."

And while we're on the subject of our hilarious and awesome neighbors who totally accept my foul mouth AND have chickens - here's the first container of eggs they gave us when we moved in. Except for the wee one there, which we were told was the first egg their chickens laid back in the day and "Look at how small it is compared to the eggs they lay now!" And while we held the eggs (CAREFULLY) and admired the difference, hilarious neighbor goes, "The chicken that laid that big egg there - she's got a cunt like a bucket." Yep. We're home.

Plus, Jada never wants to leave their deck, so there's that.

And did I mention that they make homemade fries all the time? Like, cut fresh from real potatoes and deep fried in an actual fryer? I FUCKING LOVE THESE PEOPLE.

Also, I love cooking actual meals again and eating them on actual dishes in our dining room that we're totally using in this house because why not? Also because it's the only place we have furniture on that floor, so it's either eat at the table or eat on the floor and I think I've covered how wretched the carpet is, so no.

And in case you don't know what a giant birthday cupcake looks like, here you go. My hairdresser is an hour and a half away now, but you know my ass is going up there regardless because this is what happens on my birthday at my hairdresser's.  

This is down the hill from our house and I'm sure there's a Jeff Foxworthy joke for this, but I refuse to make it. 

Much champagne was had in the name of my birthday. Plus chips. Always chips.

And ripping out of spaghetti mess cables wadded up not at all neatly by my side of the bed. EW. AWAY WITH BULLSHIT.

And face pinching. 

So that was my birthday, in a shell.

And now I'm going to go look at some farms in Germany for a week.

Even cleaned up my work boots for the trip because I can't be visiting their German farms in dirty boots covered in American filth now can I? No. Because I'm a lady. And also I refuse to pack dirty boots into a bag with my clothes. Ew. 

OHMYGODWEFINALLYMOVEDSHITDAMN

So, yeah. We're here. 

In the country.

FUCKINGFINALLYALREADY.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The bees are here. With a view.

Jada's here. On the horrible carpet. Because she's the only one that likes horrible carpet.

All of our shit is here.

Our hilarious contractor is here pre-filling our new fridge with pink-bowed beer for Bubba.

Jada's new buddies are here

Sure as shit the turkeys are here

I've even cooked a few dinners after stripping clean (except for one. I left one tomato. On each plant. Because I'm a lady.) my vegetable plants. 

I needed help lifting this.

All people use roofing material as a patio coffee table. ALL PEOPLE SHUTTUP.

Weird kitchen with ugly tile countertops and the fabulous fabulous view.

Our Realtor is a hero, awesome and hilarious.

Too bad Jada doesn't love him AT ALL.

What more do you need for move day than (clockwise from bottom left) Fruity Pebbles, Rice Krispies and caramel, cinnamon, dark chocolate old fashioned, bacon maple chocolate, apple fritter, Oreo caramel, dark cherry cordial, sprinkles, strawberry Pocky, glazed old fashioned and salted caramel dark chocolate Rice Krispies donuts? WHAT MORE I ASK?

OK, that also.

Especially after this farewell from San Jose.

Figures.

Jada was the only one that loved the horrible grass.

So, we're here. We're in the country. We're unpacking and adjusting and meeting the neighbors and marveling at how the movers knew exactly how we wanted our furniture arranged. 

Perfect.

We've built a new stairway and deck.

Put on two new roofs. 

Cuddled our painter's dog

Found some good breakfast spots

Hunted turkeys

Hunted turkeys

 and stargazed (while taking shitty pictures with the phone).

And next weekend is my birthday and do you know what I'm doing for my first birthday in our country house?

I'M SETTING UP MY CRAFT ROOM MUTHER FUCKERS.

Yeah. We're going to be just fine "Way out there so far away from everything! What are you going to do?".

Hey, I might even write a meaningful blog post one day. 

MIGHT. 

Good to see you guys, by the way. You look hotter from here anyway. 

So...the fucking marigolds.

I planted too many marigolds.

Those are bush beans in there. True story.

The flower that I have always maligned has, like, run a-complete-mok in the garden.

I planted too many marigolds.

I tell myself this every time I go to the garden.

Because this past winter when I was planning my garden, all the while knowing we were totally planning to eventually sell our house and the garden and move to the country (yes, we knew. Don't be all mad.), I made a pact with myself.

Or something like a pact - like, a decision. Or a mandate! No, that sounds weird.

Anyway, my *strategy*,  let's call it since that sounds marginally less Plant Lady Crazy, was that this, quite possibly my last vegetable garden at this house, was going to be AMAZING.

Perfect.

Over the top with fucking awesomeness.

Like, no whammies whatsoever.

I was going to just kill it. In the way that killing it is having it be the best vegetable garden I've grown ever.

So, all I planted were Sure Things.

Like, firstly I took stock of what plants I'd saved seed from. Those were my home team advantage. I already knew they loved it here.

Then, for the Sure Thing ones for which I didn't have saved seed (like they were hybrid varieties) but I knew did REALLY well here, I went into my seed stash and raided whatever I had left to grow out into seedlings.

Then I set out a garden plan for the final round of my crop rotation in the garden in which I have grown vegetables for 10 years and, as extra insurance for the AMAZING HOLY SHIT garden, I also chose and sowed marigold seed that I hoped wouldn't make me sad every time I went to the garden.

Because marigolds are really good in the garden and also terrifically ugly.

They repel pests and attract beneficials while all the while looking like burned up wads of tissue paper that somehow missed the trash can and blew into the yard. But they do all that fruity shit for the garden that is actually quite good and real but for which people think I'm insane and, like, a whimsical moon maiden to believe and I don't care because fuck those guys.

I'll have burned up dark orange tissue wads protecting my last garden in this house because it has to be AMAZING HOLY SHIT or, like, BUST or whatever.

And so I found marigolds that were in a color I could stomach and wouldn't make me think that I had a bunch of blossoms on my vegetables because they were the same yellow color as the majority of my crops' blossoms. Which was the other reason I came to hate marigolds because I have only ever grown the yellow ones and I'd get all, "OOH! The tomatoes have blossomsohnotheydon'tit'sjustastupidmarigoldjerk."

Less jerky

Hate that.

So, I got these. Dark orange. I love orange. You know this.

And then because I hardly ever grow marigolds and have, obviously, very little idea how big they actually get, I planted about 105 of them in and around my vegetable garden that is not even 100 square feet.

So, yeah...the fucking marigolds.

I planted too many.

Are you seeing the burned up wad of tissue paper thing here?

And every time I come out here to check on how the AMAZING HOLY SHIT garden is doing, I think to myself, "WOW! This garden is doing AMAZING. HOLY SHIT!" and then, "I planted a too many marigolds. This is fucking ridiculous."

The "Watermelon" bed. Mmhhmm...

Also, "Wow. Those are way bigger plants than I remember them being. No wonder my work crew thought I was insane for wanting to put 3 plants to a 1 gallon pot at the entrances to my greenhouse. They must think I'm a moron."

Whatever. They're huge and the garden is really AMAZING HOLY SHIT so I'm fine with it.

The "Cucumber" bed

The Tomato bed that was saved the indecency of being overrun by marigolds but instead by nasturtium.

The tomatillo bed - spared the marigolds, but still a little scared.

Though I am having a hard time finding the AMAZING HOLY SHIT vegetables I was so intent on growing.

Beans? Are there beans in there? I think that no.

Because they're pretty much lost forever behind all the muther fucking marigolds yikes.

I'm thinking of pulling a few plants out, but you know how I am and how I hate to throw plants away, especially ones that are doing so well and clearly helping the garden so much.

Though I can't really say how much because I am having a pretty hard time finding the vegetables in there.

But I've found some.

And they've been pretty AMAZING HOLY SHIT so far.

The pole beans (Fortex, Blue Coco) and cucumbers (Lemon, Boothby Blonde) that I've snatched from the grips of marigolds.

The first pink lemon which I'm told tastes like grapefruit.

Kinda looks like grapefruit if you ask me. Which you are, right? That's why you're here? So, yes - grapefruit.

And I've, thanks to the not-yellowness of the marigolds, found lots of tomato blossoms and tomatillo blossoms and no watermelon blossoms yet because their sun may be getting blocked by the...um...marigolds, but I can see their spotted leaves!

The first lanterns! Not at all obscured by tricky lying ass marigolds.

Some more beans. Because OH MY GOD WITH THE FUCKING BEANS.

That's a cucumber blossom which is OCCUPIED.

Yeah - watermelons. For reals.

Some tomatoes already setting. 

Yes. The blossoms are on the plants, fruit is on some of the plants, we'll probably have our first tomato by 4th of July which is almost 2 months before we move, we've already harvested nearly 10 pounds of beans and another 10 of cucumbers and it's really looking like my post productive garden ever.

Also we have grapes and this artichoke.

This artichoke

These grapes

And, like a billion sweet peas and nasturtium and we did have this volunteer Lemon Queen sunflower that I just hacked down because it was leaning unattractively and shade-blockingly in front of the melons that just grew up out of nowhere without my help or water.

I won't take credit for that one. It was just the annual, "Who's this fucking guy?" sunflower that I have gotten each year for the last, like, five years at least.

Man. I'm going to miss that next spring.