What to do w/ so much time…

I’m sure this is not a problem I’ll encounter very often, and should consider myself lucky to have so much free time in my hands. With Manish gone I am left talking to myself most of the time and finding projects to stay busy.

We laid some brick tiles as a patio extension for our picnic bench, and I also put in a garden in the backyard with some perennials. Just creating the bed was such labor intensive process. The sod had to be pulled out first… I felt pretty strong just ripping it up, and at that point very excited visualizing the future garden. Manish helped out in the ripping process too, which made it go by faster. Then I learned the hard way that we have really hard clay soil which is not very easy to work with. Plants need soil that is not compacted and has enough fluff to it so the roots can spread easily. So of course, the next logical step for me was to do some tilling to break up and loosen up the soil. I had seen commercials on TV for the type of tiller that looks like a giant twisted fork – they show old women use it with ease. Ok, so off I go to Lowes and invested $25 towards the garden. Back to the garden site w/ my nice new shiny tiller, and let me tell you, those old women must be some mighty tough cookies or they were doing the digging on the beach. I had to thrust the fork into the ground, stand on it, put my whole weight into, wiggle it as much as I could, step down, and put my whole weight into it to do the twisting motion. Two weekends and plenty of sore muscles later, I had tilled up my little patch, added top soil, tilled that in, and made it somewhat workable. Now that I look back, I think I should have added more topsoil, guess I’ll just have to wait and see how the plants perform. And of course, as I was telling M about my tilling woes he says “I have an automatic tiller at home that you can borrow”… a little too late for this time around, but there will be more gardens in the future in my little yard.

On memorial day weekend I went out to Country Arbors and picked up some perennials. I identified plants that will thrive even with very low care – four lavender bushes, four silver mounds, two purple coneflowersand two brown eyed susies. I worked in quite a bit of perlite for the lavenders and silver mounds since they like very well drained soil and not much water. I am a little worried that the clay soil in the bed would still hold too much water and kill the root – we’ll just have to wait and see I guess. I put stones around the lavenders and silver mounds as it was recommended on some website – they’re supposed to reflect the sunlight and reduce moisture. The lavenders are close to the patio, so hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy the fragrance from our picnic bench. I used the silver mounds as a border on the rest of the bed, and filled it in with the coneflowers and susies , both native prairie plants. I also picked up a fuchsia which is supposed to attract hummingbirds for the back of the bed where there is more shade. The fuchsia is supposed to get up to 6′, so it’ll add nice height to the garden. I also have a pole w/bird-feeder and bird bath… I don’t think birds know about it yet. I did spot a hummingbird last week drinking out of the feeder.

So far the lavenders and fuchsia have bloomed and there are lot of buds on the prairie plants. I’m hoping to be able to enjoy the garden pretty soon. Vegetable garden will be a project for next year… and a raised bed is sounding more and more attractive than a tilled bed.

It’s summer in Basel too

Both of us have been feeling a little lonely lately. Why you ask… Manish left for Basel, Switzerland over a month ago, and I am still hanging out in Champaign. He’s doing research at the University of Basel, and is trying to get adjusted to the European lifestyle. I’ll let him write about his expriences there. I’m counting down the days till I leave to join him – 23 days now. We are planning on doing a bit a of traveling around Europe for few weeks. We’ll spend around a week hiking in the Alps, and some time in France and Belgium maybe.

It’s summer in Champaign

Ok, now fast forward to summer of 2007.  Life has been moving at a steady pace since we moved to Champaign.  Manish finished two semesters, I started working at the University, and we are enjoying our new home.  The winter was pretty brutal – apparently it was an out of the ordinary, extremely nasty one.  The University closed due to the weather for the first time since 1979!  And I thought we were bringing the pleasant weather from San Diego.  Spring was a welcomed change, and I am trying to enjoy the warm weather as much as possible now.

A belated goodbye to 2006

Ok, here’s another one we never posted…

We’re already in 2007! 2006 was a very eventful year for us – our first full year as married couple, a lot of traveling, a big move, and Manish started his student life. Here is our year in review:

January – back from India after our weddings and honeymoons

February – England trip and moved into the new apt in Glendale

March – 1st first wedding Anniversary in Mammoth (as opposed to 2nd first and 3rd first – we’ll explain this later)

April – trip out to Champaign to check out our possible new hometown and Manish accepted his admission to UofI

May – started packing,visited Anu’s sister and family

June – quit jobs, moved out of Glendale apt

July – left for South America, toured Peru and Ecuador

August – back from Costa Rica, drove cross country to our new hometown, Manish started ABCs

September – Anu started new job at the outdoor gear store

October – we turned 30 and celebrated at the Chicago marathon

November – started house hunting

December – moved into our new home

We’re hoping 2007 will be a bit slower and we’ll be able to take our time enjoying midwestern living (lot of corn)

Chicago Marathon is around the corner

Here is a post we had written up early October 2006…

Both of us have been fretting over our lack of preparation for the big Marathon which is now in approximately 3 weeks! Manish has been running in spurts with wildly varying distances every weekend. He started out with a 18 miler, ran a few 13-14 miler and then ran a 22. The 22 miler was tough on him. The only good thing was one of his professors was with him. This professor is 10 years older than him, but runs like the wind. Manish was trying to keep up with his pace of 8:15 and could not keep up for long. But in the time he could stay with him, Manish started his usual discussion on his “dream” thesis project and somehow got talked into teaching a class on design of a membrane treatment plant that he had worked on. After this he kept falling back till everybody passed him and ended up close to a 10 min pace for the complete run! Anyway, we will see how he does in the marathon.

Anu has been running rather consistently but has not done the big 20 yet. We are thinking of doing that this weekend (Sunday). It is kinda tough to run 20 miles in a town which is maybe 7-8 miles wide. We will figure something out. Anu’s job involves being on her feet all day so that has placed a lot of stress on her feet (and legs) and she sometimes feels like she is injured. After being on her feet all day she feels like she has ran a marathon already! However, she has been plugging away and trying to run as much as she can. We ordered some recovery drinks and gel packs and hopefully that will give us the kick that we have been missing at the end of our runs!

Update: We both finished the marathon!  Anu shaved off 22 minutes from her previous (and first) marathon, and Manish did rather well also.  Manish is now determined to train hard for next year’s race and beat his PR.