Peppers and tomatoes oh my

It appears that the Topsy Turvy hasn't let us down, except it forgot to tell the plants in it that they need to stop growing toward the sun and cooperate. We're going to have to put in supports to keep them upright which sort of defeats the point of the damn thing, but that's okay.

Our tomato plant, which we fondly call Little Otik, after the most disturbing movie ever, has finally started to bear tomatoes. We only got half way through the movie before we turned it off, but I have to admit that I'm curious about the end. And it's been the topic of a lot of laughs. In case you feel like spending $27, here it is:



There are at least two tomatoes that we can see now. Here's Otik in all of his glory, amazing us every day with his growth:



And his tomatoes:





Check out all of his flowers:



I love this photograph because I accidentally caught my husband watering the basil plant while I was snapping shots of Otik. You can see the precision of his watering while he tries to water through the top of the Topsy Turvy through a small hole. God forbid he catch me drowning the plants. It's serious business, as you can see.



And my pepper plant. He's out of control.



Lots of flowers are appearing and this guy:

Cape Cod

I've been MIA. Two weekends ago my husband and I went to the Cape to visit my parents at their Cape house.

They did such an amazing job with their yard. Flowers, fruits, vegetables... it has everything and it's perfect. Carrots, garlic, asparagus, strawberries, herbs, tomatoes, peppers and more. And they are so happy there.

Some photographs of their yard:









And my wonderful parents:

Giveaway Winner

The winning number is 1, which means Kat is the winner. Congratulations! Email me your address and let me know what your choice is.

Testing in America

My work signed me up for a class on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. I had 30 days to take an exam following the classes, but decided to schedule it for Thursday. Anyway, I got to the testing site early in the morning and walked into the waiting room. There was a fairly long line to the front and lots of people were sitting down in chairs waiting. The first thing I heard was "everyone, put your study materials away. You are not allowed to study in here." Okay, why? We weren't in the testing room. We were waiting to check in. I know I got there pretty early and it would have been nice to refresh. Between the time you checked in and got called up, there was a good 30 minutes which could have equated to some pretty nice studying time.

What happened next leaves me speechless. Every single person, after showing a state driver's license or passport (your two options) was also fingerprinted. So why is it enough to show your photo identification at the airport, but not enough to take an exam? I'm not sure but I have to say that I felt somewhat violated getting fingerprinted twice. And it also bothers me that they didn't say they would discard my information after. Anyway, the experience was awful. I don't want to get into it more but I'm telling you that I would rather go through airport security any day over taking a test with Pearson. The good news is I passed the exam. The bad news is I have 8 more to go.

On a brighter note, you still have tonight to head on over and enter the giveaway on my blog. Details can be found here: http://whistlingbird.blogspot.com/2010/06/giveaway.html

Giveaway!

Kat (http://www.livinglikethekings.com/) had a wonderful idea to do a giveaway on her blog, so I decided to follow her lead and give back to my readers. One lucky winner will receive a choice of the following:

Saffron (which costs more per ounce than anything should cost):



Or white truffle oil:



Or a case of 24 of one of my favorite chocolates from England that I can never find here:



So what do you have to do?

You can have up to 5! entries:

1. One entry for a comment on this blog with your favorite recipe (this can be a link).
2. Tweet this entry and paste a link in the comments on the blog to receive 1 additional entry
3. Post the link to this giveaway on facebook and post a comment with the link on the blog to receive 1 additional entry
4. Write a blurb in your blog and post a comment with the link on the blog to receive 1 additional entry

Bonus:

5. Join my blog as a reader and you can get a 5th entry. You need to comment in this post letting me know you joined for it to be counted.

I will use a random number generator to pick a winner on Saturday, 6/12.

MIA

This has been a rough weekend for me because I've been working. I was supposed to go to the Cape and relax on the beach and hang out with my parents this weekend, but I canceled everything so I could work on a time-sensitive project. Anyway, that explains why I haven't been updating in a nutshell.

However, I did snap some photographs of our balcony plants this morning because I can't believe how much they have grown. Remember this tomato topsy turvy plant?



He now looks like this as of today:







Our little pepper plant, which I was sure wouldn't make it, has buds coming in:



And our flower box which looked like this a few weeks ago:



Now looks like this:



Also, we let one of our sweet potatoes root so we could grow it:



Does anyone know what we need to do next to get some potatoes growing? Do we just cut them out and put them in water and then plant them in soil once they root?