These Five Things are brought to you by the letter S and the number 7.

— Thing One —

Shanny, Shanny, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? My sister, father and I went to Home Depot and Lowes one bright Saturday morning – far too early for a Saturday morning might I add – and bought the necessary equipment for planting a small vegetable and flower garden. Later, my sister and I spent four hours digging up the earth and laying down soil and compost (mmmm, compost), and finally, planted our garden! In the front we have Burgundy Blush, Silver Star, Sensation Deep Rose and I later found some English Lavender which has a wonderful smell! I cannot wait for late spring/early summer when everything will be in bloom!  In the back we planted some tomatoes and basil – I suppose we can make it into sauce. I want to plant some peas, cucumbers, mint and maybe lettuce, we’ll see how these take.

I’m not too worried about the flowers, they are pretty low maintenance, but I am a bit worried about the tomatoes, I already see issues with the leaves so I’m going to have to do some more research on taking care of them. I am happy to report though, that they have grown in the last few weeks which makes me hopeful that they will last! Maybe the black thumb curse has been broken!

— Thing Two —

That one time I built a reading fort, one free Sunday afternoon. One of my poles got a bit messed up after this adventure, but I think it will still be able to support the tent. There’s really something fun about pitching a tent, even if it’s in your backyard.

— Thing Three —

If you’ve seen The Princess Diaries then you’re acquainted with her work. Meg Cabot came to visit New York and I got a book signed by her! Yay! She’s hilarious, as you can see from her blog, and she writes for kids, teens and adults. She writes a lot! After signing the books she warned us about the weather and reminded us to take umbrellas. Author and meteorologist, is there anything Meg Cabot cannot do?

— Thing Four —

There is this place in College Point called Spa Castle and it is wonderful. That is all!

[cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory]

— Thing Five —

My dad, my sister and I took a drive from New York to Pennsylvania to visit my uncle and his family. They recently moved west and we haven’t visited them since. It was a great day for visiting, no rain and with hardly any traffic (looking at you GWB) the joys of cruise control was experienced.

A lot of country jokes were made, my sister decided to play Hunger Games because they had some “woods” (see clump of trees below) and someone might have spotted a “bear” or two. However, the best thing was the welcome we received from my little cousin, Nate, as he saw us pull in – the screaming and the hugs that we experienced were priceless.

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