A rough night followed by a lovely morning

I discovered last night that my itchiness was not blood donation related. Or in my head. This realization was made because it happened for the second night in a row. I woke up around 3am mid-scratch, and guessed that I had been clawing myself for at least an hour. Joey has his second weekend of ultimate tryouts, and I really didn't want to wake him up. I took some medicated cream with me into the bathroom and tried to deal with the situation myself. I had raised itchy bumps all over the insides of my arms, as well in some other places, like my neck and back. I slathered myself with the cream, washed off my hands, and stumbled back to bed. It was once I was back in bed that I broke down. Even with the cream, I was so incredibly itchy. My right arm especially felt like it was burning. I also didn't know what was causing it. I suddenly came to the realization that it had to be some kind of contact irritant/allergic reaction, so I threw off all of my sheets and covers. Lying there, cold and miserable, I finally decided to wake Joey up. Best decision I made all night. He immediately sprung into action, removing all blankets that were previously on the bed, replacing them with new ones. He even replaced my pillow case, and gave me replacement stuffed animals for the night. I'm really hoping that my stuffed friends weren't the offenders, since I'm not sure how well they would hold up to a washing. He then gave me some tissues, held my hand for a while, and then turned out the lights, first making me promise that I would wake him up if things didn't improve. It took at least a half hour, but the burning and itching subsided. Wrapped up in the new blankets, I realized that the bumps has been on every part of my bare skin that was touching the blanket. Today we'll wash all of the blankets, and hopefully the problem will be solved. I still don't understand why it happened. The sheet was from my house - I have been sleeping with it for a long time. The blanket was Joey's, but I've slept with it many times before, and have been using it the past week. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I hope I haven't developed some weird allergy to jersey cotton.

Joey's alarm went off around 9, and I got up with him. He had a quick breakfast before heading off to what is hopefully his last day of tryouts. I decided to make something to eat as well, and take a look at the plants, before getting back in bed (where I am now). Now I am having a lovely morning.

My breakfast was delicious. I'm definitely not going to write up a recipe, but I toasted two pieces of multi-grain bread (from the bakery where one of Joey's roommates works - I'll definitely miss that!), topped one with a fried egg, and the other with homemade strawberry jam. I used to think that I didn't like runny yolks, but trying out a poached egg on the cruise made me change my mind. This egg was cooked perfectly so that the white was set and golden, and the yolk was slightly oozing out. The jam was also a nice surprise - I made (with tons of help from Joey) homemade strawberry jam the other night. We went strawberry picking again last weekend, and picked ~15lbs of strawberries, in the hopes of making jam. I don't know what went wrong, but the jam didn't set very well. We made 8 pint-sized jars, and the last one was only half full so we stuck it in the fridge. If anything, it seemed the most liquidy. Joey opened it to have with his breakfast, and I was expecting it to just completely pour out. While it was definitely runnier than most jams, it still spread just fine on some toast! Thank goodness! It also is the most beautiful bright red.

Just as it was starting to rain, I went outside and snapped some quick pictures of our balcony garden. I put a teaser picture up yesterday, and wanted to take some better pictures of the individual plants. Here goes!

What was supposed to be completely our herb box

Thyme

White bunching onions, also known as scallions/green onions

Basil - one of our favorites! The little guy at the bottom hasn't grown much

Eggplant..whoops. I mixed it up with the parsley when we were transplanting

One of our "veggie" boxes

The parsley, which was obviously supposed to be switched with the eggplant

Broccoli!

Veggie box #2

Bell peppers

Roma tomatoes

Joey took one of the roma tomatoes and put it in its own pot, hopefully this one will get really big

Rainbow swiss chard

Tons of lettuce and thyme! The thyme is from last summer, it survived the winter with absolutely zero attention from us

I swear, every day the lettuce is noticeably bigger

Big tomato plant :) This is the only thing we aren't growing from seed

First tomatoes coming in!

Kumquat tree! I don't know when it will start producing anything, but I can definitely see new green growth

It started to rain when I was grabbing this picture. so I didn't have time to get any more closeups. From top left, going clockwise: There is a group of 4 solo cups that we are growing radishes in. They are probably getting close to being ready. Then in the top right is a pot of chives, actually also from last summer. Then is our new rosemary plant. So correction, that is the second thing we are not growing from seed. The rosemary plant from last summer is still doing really well, but we're afraid to dig it out of the ground. This new guy is doing great as well. In the bottom right is my sunflower :) At the bottom is cinnamon basil, which I've never had before. I don't know what we tried to plant in the bottom left, but it definitely didn't grow. Above that is some dill that is struggling to grow. And in the middle is another roma tomato plant. 

Hopefully everything will survive the move next weekend!