Green Gal

I woke up at 8am yesterday, which hardly ever happens on weekends. Usually I sleep as long as I can before I have to get up for whatever plans I may have. Usually that means sleeping until 10am, a blissful change from my near-dawn weekday wake up time that's required for me to be first in line with my bike for the bus commute over the hill. Perhaps it was easier to get up early yesterday because my body is now fully adjusted to waking up early... or maybe (more likely) it's because I wanted to get some gardening in before bicycling over to Veggielution farm for their Saturday work day. Either way, I was up early enough to get my hands in the soil, transplant plants, plant seeds, water, and enjoy a cup of coffee. It was a much better use of my morning and more fun than sleeping. Remember the broccoli sprouts I posted about here ? They are doing great, although the tomatoes in the other can never showed themselves, sadly (old seeds may be the issue). I have kept the br...

On Wednesday, August 26, Green Guy and I attended the 5th Annual Silicon Valley Bike Summit in Palo Alto for a day of presentations and conversations about the state of bicycling in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, what new roadway and technology improvements are planned to improve bicycle safety, and how we can encourage more people in our community to safely bicycle for transportation, fun, and health. Getting There - Caltrain After a short bike ride to the Caltrain station, we boarded the bike car along with fellow active transportation advocates Richard Masoner ( Cyclelicious ) and Jaime Fearer ( California Walks ), both of whom spoke at the summit later that day. As with a number of other bicycle advocates who have an online presence, I had only ever communicated with Richard by Twitter, and it was great to meet him in person. His blog is a really great resource for all things bike in this area, and he's also on Facebook and Twitter . Jaime Fearer, who I hadn'...

I planted broccoli and tomato seeds last Sunday, August 16, with broccoli going in the teal can and tomatoes in the magenta can. After planting, I realized that these containers are less than ideal for seedlings, but I was excited to see that the broccoli sprouted two little green shoots on Thursday! The tomatoes have yet to show themselves, if they will at all. If the broccoli continues to grow, I'll eventually transfer to a pot and put them outside. We'll see how challenging this can makes that process...

Awhile back, I was searching through Pinterest on my daily bus commute (yes, there's wifi on the bus!), and I came across this article claiming that you can re-grow a number of edible plants in just water. Amazing! So I tried it out. I cut the bottom of a stalk of celery and set it in as much water as possible before it began floating. I didn't count how many days it took for this to grow, but it was pretty fun to watch happen. This is about the maximum height the celery got after a few weeks. Unfortunately, I didn't harvest it before I went on a trip to Yosemite for a few days. When I returned, it had shriveled because the root at the bottom had gotten moldy. Throughout the growing process, I had to pour out and add fresh water and peel away molding stalk. I plan on trying again and keeping more on top of it, as well as harvesting some celery before it dies. I also tried growing green onions. At first I had them resting in this jar with water as you see he...

Last night, Green Guy and I biked into downtown San Jose, leaving our tree-lined neighborhood for the big tall buildings across the freeway. Though we've lived here since the beginning of June, I am still always blown away when I see those high rises right downtown, so close to where we live and yet such a different part of this city. We biked downtown in search of City Lights Theater Company , a small theater in the SoFA District of San Jose. SoFA as in South of First Area, which the San Jose Downtown Association's website states "serves as downtown San Jose’s visual arts and entertainment district. Cool, organic and creative, SoFA is a place where you can interact with some of the most eclectic and artistic people in the city." We saw and heard evidence of this in the form of various small theaters, as well as the sound of music and dancing footsteps emanating from a doorway we passed on our way. I had actually read about this area and its music scene in the loca...

In my journey back into the blogosphere, I've been reconnecting with old blogs I used to follow. One of these blogs that's been on my favorites list for awhile is Beyond the Fields We Know . Earlier this week, I was reading through posts on this blog, and I came across this one: Friday Ramble - Season . Take a moment to read it, and then hop on back over here if you want to know why I'm sharing this post in particular. While reading it, I felt that glowing sense of synchronicity that blooms in me whenever something in my recent life or mindplace seems directly intertwined with something I come into contact with from the outside world. The best part of synchronicity is that the more you acknowledge it, nurture it, talk about it, and appreciate it, the more it happens, which is like magic! Why synchronicity with this post about the origin of the word season? One quote: "Season shares its origins with the word seed, and both entities are concerned with fertility, fr...

Note: The title of this post is intentionally "All Growed Up" and not "All Grown Up" because I'm a '90s baby and its in tribute to the Rugrats TV movie of that same name . Perhaps I'm also poking a little bit of fun at myself for claiming to be grown up because a) I'm only 23 and b) who wants to really be grown up anyway? In the last eight months since I posted on this blog, many exciting changes and new adventures have happened in my life. I was so busy living that I forgot to take time to reflect, write, and share them on here. Life will probably always be busy, though, right? I'm hoping that as I settle into these new changes, I can begin blogging again a little more consistently. So what were those adventures and new changes? The biggest change is certainly that I moved away from the coastal town that I called home for nearly five years. I now live in a cute neighborhood in a big city, and I commute by bike and bus to that coastal town t...