Why I Oughta...

I planted these small Sugar Pumpkin seeds last night.  They take 100 days until maturity.  Just in time for some Halloween displaying, followed by some pie baking in early November. Last year, I grew some big pumpkins (think competition size!) but I planted them way to early - like in May.  You pick a pumpkin when the vines die back and they were browning up and dead in September.  Learned my lesson and waited until June this year.

The Strawberry bush that I planted a few years back is starting to really throw off some fruit this year.  The strawberries are plump, red, and (apparently) juicy.  I say apparently because I didn't actually eat one of these.  I was beat to them by The Babe who grabbed them straight out of Nat's colander in the sink.   

Yes, the calendar says June.  But, that doesn't mean we can't talk about Christmas, right?  Specifically this new addition to our Chrismas decor arsenal:  a vintage Christmas Tree Turner for our tinsel tree.  We were down at my folks place for Father's Day over the weekend and this box (along with the working tree) were recently discovered by my Dad as he was cleaning out the attic.  My folks weren't sure what they were going to do with it; maybe sell it on ebay or something? I plugged it in and it works perfectly.  Spins really nicely just like it did 40+ years ago when my parents used it in their house.  It is to be used with a tinsel tree that doesn't have lights on it because the lights would just get tangled in the base.  There's that auxillary plug at the bottom that my Dad tells me is for a "Color Wheel" that rotates different colors through a spotlight onto the tree.  I've looked for the Color Wheels, but they're like $50 on ebay, s

Normally when someone gives you a bathroom scale as a gift, you probably wouldn't be geeked.  But that's not the case in the Parrillo household.  Can't wait to get more data based on weigh-ins - coupled with movement data points.  This scale - called the FitBit Aria - couples with the personal Fitbit that I wear on my belt everyday.  It connects to our homenetwork via wifi and *magically* keeps track of your weight without any need to track it yourself.  The data just shows up in the Fitbit dashboard every morning.  With just 2 days of data in, there clearly is no intelligence gained, but I expect to generate some data over the course of a couple of months.  The tricky part is going to come up with a routine to weigh myself in the same manner everyday. Now all I need is some sort of device that monitors all the chow that I stuff in my piehole.  Then I'll be lean and mean.

Who'd thunk that I'd be surrounded by all these women!  Here's my three ladies and myself out on the front porch this morning.  Last day of leave for a bit, so we're savoring every minute of it.  I'm a lucky guy! Don't think you can get a better Father's Day present that the new addition to the family - whom we're calling 'The Bird' here on the blog.   Her Papa, who was sick last week, also got his first chance to bond with The Bird when we traveled to their house to celebrate with him.

A 55 gallon tank is perfect for a suburban dad with a finished basement, right?  I'm in the market to start up an aquarium for both me and the Babe.  Nat isn't that thrilled with the idea, but she has given me her blessing to go ahead.  As long as she doesn't have to clean the tank.  Ever.

In spite of the fact that I brought home a "4th of July" tomato variety, the Romas are the first out the game with little tiny tomato fruits budding.