Catch up

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted...gotta be a better blogger!

Let's see...
For Valentine's Day, we cooked zucchini risotto for dinner. Nothing extra special. :p Well, it's better than last year when we had dinner with my parents on Valentine's Day. haha!

I got a phone call from my brother!! Since he scored the highest marks on his fitness test, he has the privilege of getting dessert during meal times. yeah! He's learning how to use a rifle and working on improving his aim. My mother and I will be flying out to Georgia to see him at the end of March which is when he gets a 36 hour pass to leave the Fort. We'll be taking him to eat lots and lots of restaurant food. I'm considering taking a Marie Callendar's pie for him since he misses it. Carry on?

For the book club, I picked Breakfast at Tiffany's and three of Capote's short stories. One of the girls realized that whenever it was my turn to pick the book, it's always really short. :D My last pick was Five People you Meet in Heaven. hehe. Well, this way, people can pick up and finish the book in the last minute.

Green thumb?

The weather has been gorgeous this past week...and it encouraged me to get outside more. Therefore I ended up spending about 2 afternoons de-weeding parts of our backyard. AND I have somehow developed a need to grow green things.

There's a small sunny patch with really fertile soil in which I'm planning to seed some sweet peas. There are two shady patches and not too many flowers that like it completely shady. SO, there's an attempt to grow impatiens. Let's hope the $2 I spent on seeds is worth it! I've planted the seeds in an egg carton much like the planting we did in elementary school. I'm HOPING very much that I can get at least half of the seeds to germinate. Wish me luck!

Update on my brother: still doing well in basic training. Last week he got to do the gas chamber. I guess it helps them train to deal with the effects of harmful gas. He wrote that it burns your skin but not lethally...great...lovely stuff. I'm not sure if he got a pass for this past weekend to wander outside of the Fort but he was planning to spend most of his pocket money on FOOD. Chinese food is popular among his training group - I think they talk about food a lot.

A civilian's life for me

So most of you know that my lil brother signed up with the Army and was taken to Fort Benning, Georgia for basic training. The first week was pretty good since they hadn't officially started training - lots of down time (pretty boring) and some phone calls home. During this time, some people had already tried escaping.

So now he's in the full swing of training therefore no more phone calls allowed. We can only communicate with him with good old-fashioned letter writing. He'll be receiving some pretty feminine stationery from me as I had accumulated a lot during my trips to Taiwan long ago but had no one to write to. :p He was the first in his company to receive an essential needs package (yes, not care package) from home so he got a lot of attention for that. His drill sergeant had to inspect the package for any food - they're not allowed any sweets during training so far. We sent him disposable razors, soap, laundry detergent, phone card (no cell phone access allowed yet), stamps to write home, and a watch which got confiscated since it was "contraband". Good thing my mother had gotten him a cheap $20 watch.

Reading his letters, I know they're currently in the mental breakdown process and basically deprived of the comforts we have in civilian life - good food (especially sweets!), choice, and sleep. I have to say, I'm pretty proud of him for going through this. :)