New Year, New Garden

I'm sure any reader of this blog knows this, but just in case...Zac and I (and Kirke) have moved to Wisconsin. We are looking for a house and a big yard so we can have a big garden. We really need a big garden now because Tracy (my mother-in-law) and I started seeds a few days ago. We planted 48 peat pots, some with the potential for multiple plants. I will be planting the majority of these plants, so I'm going to need a lot of space. Also, there were even more seed packets with seeds to be sown directly, many of which would ideally have an entire row. Talk about counting your chickens. There was nothing to be done about it, spring waits for no gardener, and when you can't plant your seedlings in the ground until May, you have to give them ample time to grow indoors first. I'm really not sure what I will do if we can't swing a large yard. There may be a community garden around here, so I'll probably try to utilize that and maybe expand on Tracy's garden as much as I can.

We planted the seeds (the kids helped too) a few days ago and already the cabbage and broccoli have sprouted. Also, my AeroGarden is growing like mad once again. Especially the basil, I'd say the basil is growing about and inch a day.

So check in on the progress, while we're waiting for planting time I'll be sure to take a few posts just writing about what we've planted.

Snow Day

I saw the last post was about the patio being green. Well not anymore. Here are some pictures of our blizzard. We're pretty sure its around 2 feet, Leesburg got more snow that the surrounding area which broke a 1932 record for December. Click on the picture to make it larger. The patio pictures are from earlier today, there is a much thicker layer on everything now.

The Patio is Still Green

The peas are about a foot tall now and are growing peas. There is some mildew and I should probably spray for that again, but it isn't nearly as bad this time perhaps partly because of how quickly they grew. Here are some of the more recent pictures.

All That Rot

The peas are getting ready to flower. I noticed a couple of the leaves had spots on them and a couple have wilted and fallen off. Closer inspection revealed what I expected, mildew again. So the less humid fall wasn't a complete answer to the mildew problem, but maybe it will at least help. I made an anti-mildew solution from a recipe I found on About.com and sprayed it on everything that was having a mildew problem. I also read that adding a little cornmeal to the soil can help with fungal problems so I'm going to try that next year in the soil for the fungus prone plants.

I have successfully rehabilitated the hybiscus plant I "rescued." It is just about to start blooming again. That will be a nice reward before it goes dormant for the winter. I'm not sure if I need to take it in. I don't think I will, I think I'll just keep it sheltered on the patio.

Notes to Self

But you can read them too. Some plans in no particular order.

1. Whitefly and aphid prevention: get and release ladybugs at the beginning of July, have insecticidal soap (try to make your own this time around) on hand for when they've all gone away to take care of whatever whiteflies manage to stick around. I have a feeling they will. There are other helpful bugs, small wasps I think, that you can encourage to come live by your plants, they just need homes. Small hollow bamboo sticks and holes drilled into a block of wood (or buy them on Etsy) are supposed to work. Don't forget to frequently check UNDER the leaves of all the plants througout the month of June. Don't forget that the whitefly infestation started on the peppermint. Also remember that the infestation got worse when the plants were wilted, so keep them watered.
2. Mildew prevention: get a recipe for a baking soda solution and spray that on the mildew-prone plants (nasturtiums and peas especially) as soon as it starts to get humid. Also, be sure to keep these plants dry, keep a close eye on them and immediately prune any leaves that become infected. You can't wait and see!
3. Chamomile: it was ugly (aside from the flowers) and messy and aphid prone. Follow the aphid prevention plan. Also, this time plant a bunch in one pot and keep it well pruned. Hopefully this will prevent the scraggly look and increase yield. If that doesn't help, switch to Roman chamomile the following year and try again.
4. Find out what the heck went wrong with the nasturtiums. Maybe I need to read something about them.

I will have a winter garden this year. I know that pansies are, by some miracle, winter hardy. I'm sure there are plenty other plants that are as well that would be suitable for a temporary winter garden. I need to figure out what those are, where to get them, and how best to arrange them. Ideally the only costs I should incur would be for the price of the plants. I'll use my existing pots once they are cleared of their annuals. The soil I have left over should be plenty for my purposes. A small space heater would be great too. This year I want the patio to be a place to go for fresh air during the winter instead of a graveyard for dead plants and stuff we aren't using.

Harvest Season

I don't think most of these pictures really require explanation. The pepper plants do now have ripe peppers and they are very tasty. The odd collection of things on the leaf below are the nymphs of some variety of shield bug (it took me a LONG time to figure that out) and they would eat my plants so I threw that leaf off the balcony. In the picture of the three tomatoes, it is the very small tomato on the far left that I grew. As small as they are, I grew great tasting tomatoes. The spiky plant is the culantro. I've since pruned off the larger spiny stem to let the wider leaves grow some more. I cut down the tomato plant that never produced tomatoes to make pot space for a hibiscus that I rescued. It is still on the road to recovery, but the passion vine is flowering again and I'm training it to grow up onto the patio lantern. I planted two pots of sugar peas and threw some basil seeds into the pots also for good measure. They sprouted in no time and I'm hoping that the cooler drier season will be better for them. I also rearranged the patio based upon the sunlight needs of the plants and to make a well defined sitting area on the patio. Even with the new open sitting area, my friends are still calling it The Jungle.

Progress and Regress

I have little tomatoes growing! The violas are blooming quite beautifully, each day their colors become more vibrant. One new pot of violas has sprouted as well. I recently planted peppermint and oregano in the old strawberry pots and the basil seeds I planted have sprouted and are starting to look like basil. The pepper plants have also started to bloom.

So now for the regress. The biggest disaster was the Topsy Turvy. We set it up last night with a Yellow Pear Heirloom tomato plant. This morning I discovered the screw had come loose from the patio ceiling and the Topsy Turvy had fallen and the tomato plant was in four pieces (one had been launched into the peppermint plant). The Topsy Turvy is fine, we just need to use a bigger screw hook (we were using one that was already installed) and find a more secure spot in the ceiling. But I will have to buy a new tomato plant, and that is annoying.

The other problems are more mild. The cilantro bombed. I got barely more than a salad out of it and it died in the heat. So the tent next to mine at the farmers market sells potted herbs (I bought the oregano and peppermint from them) and I had heard them say they had a solution to the cilantro problem. They sure do. Its called culantro, its a close relative of cilantro and tasted the same (just a little more potent) but looks completely different. It is a better plant than cilantro in many ways: you can dry it, you can freeze it, it can withstand cooking, it doesn't die in the heat, and it doesn't die as soon as it flowers. I'll keep you posted on how it works out. I'm very excited about it. Kirke likes it too, she's been sniffing and licking it.

My peas appear to have some sort of fungus, light grey spots on the leaves. I will have to look it up. I also had three catapillars eating the same yellow pepper plant that Kirke stepped on a while back. That poor plant has bad luck. It is a real trooper though, nothing seems to stop it. It is shorter than the others and full of holes, but looks just as healthy.

Pictures to come soon, but not today. Maybe when I get the Topsy Turvy up for real.

Some Pictures

I'm not going to explain much.

Peppers


Sugar Pea Flower


Nicely growing peas.


Up close, you can see the first pea pod. There are a few now.


Another view of the peas, you can see all the blooms.


Passion vine.


From a few days ago, one of the flowers from the passion vine.


Viola, if you look closely you can see the very first bloom.



Cilantro. Hidden somewhere in there are the next round of sprouts.



Tomatoes



Carrots



These are the trellises that Zac made for me. Isn't he handy?


Nasturtiums. They look like lily pads.



Chamomile flower. Pretty soon I'll have enough blooms to make tea!

Progress

Most things are growing quickly. The tomatoes are doing much better this year. One of the most exciting developments is that the peas are blooming. Pretty little white flowers that look like bonnets. The passion vine had two flowers open so far. I took a picture of one, I'll post that in my next bought of picture posting. The chamomile looks close to blooming, I see quite a few little buds forming. The cilantro is about three inches tall now and so I planted the second wave of seeds. I also planted basil seeds in one of the old strawberry pots.

There have been some mishaps. The one "strawberry" seedling does not appear to be a strawberry at all, but a weed. Only time will tell. I'm going to plant oregano in the other strawberry pot, but I don't think I'll do it from seed. My sage is not really growing. It is very susceptible to stress. I tried one last ditch effort and pot coffee grounds in the pot. It has revived a little, but no sign of growth yet. I may just have to buy a sage plant. Kirke has done her part in wreaking havoc, she stepped on one of the mini yellow bell pepper plants. It seems to be doing alright, but looks to have been broken at its base. It is still connected to its roots, but it is really floppy. I mounded the soil around it and I'm hoping it will strengthen up again. It seems to be getting all its nutrients, it looks just as healthy as the others.

Pictures next time.

Pictures!

Now everything is planted! And the patio is an absolute mess. The carrots sprouted just a few days ago and are coming up in force now.

This is one view of the patio. The tomato cages are huge, but Zac told me they were the smaller size. I should have gone to see the bigger size. I have never heard of tomato trees. This picture doesn't even show everything. To the left of the tomatoes is the planter of carrots. The pieces of wood are what Zac is going to use to build three trellises.

Another view of the patio. The orange things in the blue plastic container are my discarded plant labels. I switched them out with the nice new white ones. Kirke is having a hard time finding a spot to look through the lattice.


Chamomile! No flowers yet.



Peas! These are doing very well. They are sending out climbing shoots (I'm sure there is a real name for them), so hopefully they'll have a trellis to climb soon.


Peppers! Still very small. What is amazing to me is how poorly they do on really hot days. They do not like it, they didn't like it last year either. Wimpy peppers. I have two planters of these, for six plants. Two mini yellow, two mini red, and two regular sized green/red.


A note to Grandma: I know you wanted to buy me the pots...but I'll tell you what, get me two topsy turvy hanging bags for Christmas and I'll grow cucumbers next year.

Dirt all over the patio

Back from California and things are growing nicely. The cilantro sprouted and the peas are almost two inches tall. Yesterday and today I did a lot more work on the garden. I planted one big planter full of carrots. They are a small variety and I opted for some overcrowding and planted three rows. It worked alright last year to eat the tiny ones I pulled out to thin the ranks and let the others grow bigger. I also transplanted a lot of the sprouts. The one chamomile plant I transplanted took to the new pot right away, I'd say it grew half an inch overnight. I don't have the final pots for the tomatoes yet, but I moved them into tiny pots that are at least larger than the little pods they had been trying to grow in.

I think I found a strawberry sprout, but it's too soon to say whether that is a strawberry or a weed.

There aren't too many things left to transplant. Just the bell peppers, chamomile, and stage 2 on the tomatoes. I still have the nasturtium seeds to plant and a few more violas. Later in the spring I'll sow the seeds for basil and more cilantro. Right now I have an abundance of basil in the house, so I have time to kill.

I'll take some pictures of my productive porch in the next couple days and post them.

Cold Hardy

Some of the peas sprouted today! No sign of the cilantro yet, but it has been cold, I wouldn't sprout either. I've been keeping all the sprouts I started indoors outdoors all day and overnight now. The plan is to keep them outside until I get back from the wedding (my sister, Kelli, is getting married in CA, in case I have readers that are not my grandma) and then I'll transplant them to their final pots. Then I'll check the forecast, if it looks good I'll sow the carrot seeds and nasturtium seeds.

Necessary Selection

I'm in the thinning stages with my sprouts. Only the biggest sprout per seed pod wins! I hate this part. It seems to me that if a seed sprouts and makes it, it should be able to make it. But that isn't how it goes. If too may are too close they will choke each other out and then no one wins. I've started doing this earlier than I did last year, I already know the outcome, there is no sense delaying the inevitable and this gives the winners a better start. Still, it hurts. The other confounding factor is space. I only have so many pots and so large a patio.

There was a frost last night, so we're not out of the woods yet. Despite that, the chives keep growing. I'd say they are about five inches tall now.

Indoors, to manage my basil mania I've been putting the clippings into shallow bowels of water to keep them fresh until I use them. Now some of those have grown roots and are growing! I'm thinking pesto is a good idea for supper.

Peas Rotate Your Crops

Today was cold and gloomy, but I did get some planting done on the patio. I planted the cilantro in half of its pot. The packet recommended succession sowing, so while I don't have rows of garden to do that with, I'm doing one half of the pot now, and I'm planning to sow the other half once the first batch gets established. I also planted the sugar peas. I really don't know what to expect from them. That made it hard to know how many seeds to plant in the pot I have designated for them, but looking back over the info on them I am thinking of going from two plants to four. I can always pull them out if they are getting over crowded as long as I do it early enough. (I've learned my lesson on overcrowding after the tomatoes.) Below is the info on the peas from the Baker Creek site:

De Grace New!
A lovely dwarf variety that was grown in America before 1836, and likely much longer ago in Europe. This variety has been extinct to the North American seed trade for more than 20 years, so we are happy to bring back this great pea. The pods are medium sized and sweetly flavored, crisp and tender. The vines produce over a long season and are more frost hardy than many modern varieties.

I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but the chives from Tracy that were on the patio have started growing. Making good time of it too. I didn't look at them for maybe three days and they went from nothing at all to three inches tall. Nothing from the strawberries yet. Also this evening I moved all the planted pots to the edge of the patio so they would start getting real sun.

I can really understand the Dust Bowl after readying my former tomato pot for the peas. The soil was nearly ruined. I was able to see that all the roots from the tomatoes had crowded the edges to the point of a near solid wall and the soil in the middle was kicking up serious dust as I tried to work it up and get some of it out of the pot to be replaced by new potting soil and some moisture control potting mix. I used the same soil in my other pots and they had not deteriorated nearly so extremely, certainly no dust choking me. I have never read anything about tomatoes destroying the soil and I know that I overcrowded them, however after seeing the number they did, when I start planting in the ground (some day) I will think twice before planting tomatoes in the same spot every year.

All Aboard

Good news! All my window sill seeds have sprouted. That answers my question about whether the seeds from last year were still good. The California Wonder Peppers took the longest, but they finally made it. I had no idea the sage would look so different from the rest when it sprouted. Its color is just like it will be when mature and the first sprout leaves are very round and thick. The violas are very tiny still. Fitting I guess.

Soon I'm planning to take the cover off the seed starting tray, at least during the day. That particular window gets a terrible draft even though we've sealed it up. The next step will be to give the seedlings some time outside.

The blog I did not link to before for lack of time was Grow Lively which I actually found through the Crunchy Con blog.

Springtime

Tomorrow is the beginning of daylight savings time and while for many that means one less hour of sleep, I find I can suspend my usual jealousy about my sleep and be nothing but happy at the prospect of more evening sunlight. To help the feeling along, it is a high of 75 today.

For the garden segment of this post: This morning one of the Roma tomatoes sprouted.

In case you haven't noticed, I've started using this blog as a way to document my garden. More for my benefit than anyone else's. Still I hope it is enjoyable to read about my garden. I got the idea from another blog. I'll link to that next time, I have to go eat breakfast. Waffles and bacon!

Signs of Life

Chamomile sprouted yesterday. Quite quick. The instructions said not to cover the seeds but I had no choice since they are in the same container as the others so I hope this is not a sign that they are getting ahead of themselves.

As Promised

Here are some pictures from last year's garden.

The cucumbers that never were. I couldn't keep them watered enough, the pots were too small. They grew long and thin and never made cucumbers longer than an inch. Then they were attacked by tiny spiders and were covered with a thin veil of web, which essentially blocked out the sun and killed them. All rather horrific. I decided not to try cucumbers on the patio this year. I'll wait until I can plant some in the ground. The tiny little sprouts are strawberries. I barely got strawberries, but I'm expecting that this year those plants will produce fruit.


These were the first fruits. Mini chocolate bell peppers, a mini red bell pepper, and very small carrots. The carrots eventually grew much larger and were quite tasty. I'll be planting those again this year. I'm going to let them have the whole pot this time instead of having them share with the green onions (which weren't very successful). I also used the carrot greens in stir fry for a little green addition and my plan is to use it this year in place of parsley. The mini bell peppers were great stuffed with cream cheese and herbs and baked.


This is the new patio in the process of the move. We kept our books on the porch for the first couple weeks. On the left are some of the bell pepper plants. On the right are the green onions and the carrots. Carrots make a lot of green.


On the right is one of the mini bell pepper plants. On the right is the California Wonder bell pepper plant. I had three of those. They don't grow nearly as large in a container as you find in the grocery store. However, they were a great size for a household of two. I have some strategies for my garden this year that might allow for bigger produce, or at least more of it.

That's the gist of it. In the end it was quite wild looking. I'm sure it will be even crazier this next year. Today I planted Broad Leaf Sage and Helen Mount Violas seeds in my window sill starter garden. Technically the Violas weren't supposed to be started indoors, but they are such a year round adaptable flower as far as I can tell that I decided to satisfy my impatience. It was a snowy day and it promises to be a cold week. Come this weekend it should warm up and I think I'll plant some of the seeds outside that are supposed to be able to be started outside before the last frost. That makes me nervous, but I'm trying to trust the seed packets. You have to start somewhere.

Garden Journal

Today is day 1 of the 2009 Gappa Patio Garden! Yay! Not much to speak of on the patio as of yet. Cleared away some of the dead stuff from the pots with plants I hope will grow back: Tracy's chives and the strawberries. I also gave them a little water. More importantly, however, is that I got my seeds started. They are going to get their start on the window ledge by my side of the bed right above the dog bed.

This year I ordered my seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. No problems with my seed company of last year, I just liked the heirloom seed effort, appreciated knowing they make a point not to sell GMO seeds, and they had most of what I wanted. I did have some seeds left from last year. As far as I'm aware they should all be good for this year as well.

The seeds I started today:
Roma Tomatoes (yes, I'm trying again)
California Wonder Bell Peppers
Mini Red Bell Peppers
Sweet Yellow Stuffing Peppers (I think they are basically mini yellow bell peppers, but I guess I'll find out.)
German Chamomile

I like the story on the Yellow Peppers:

This amazing little pepper comes to us from Amish grower Ester Smucker of Indiana. The seed was passed down to her from her Grandmother, whom she fondly remembers growing these peppers in the 1950s in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The very productive plants produce the cutest little mini bell-shaped peppers, only 1"-2" across! Ester uses these to make wonderful stuff ed and pickled peppers!

On the indoor gardening front, my AeroGarden herb garden is growing quite nicely. (Thanks Grandma!) The basil is insane, really. The rest of the herbs are catching up now too. I have growing basil, oregano, thyme, dill, mint, and chives. Normally I'm so reluctant to use recipes calling for fresh herbs because they cost so much. Now I'm being pressed to find ways to keep my fresh herbs from going to waste. A much better place to be, I think. A few days ago I tried my hand at making fresh pesto in the food processor. Overall a good and easy experience but I used way too much garlic.

Tea Parties with the Bees

And now for a whirlwind update.
I never did do much with the blog mentioned below. However, I have done something with this one:

High Tea Adventure Club

That has been loads of fun. If you go there you will also notice that we got a dog! Her name is Kirke, we got her in February after months of searching in animal shelters. It is quite a process to adopt a dog. So I'd like to thank the Berryville Animal Shelter for being so wonderful.

I'm also looking for a new job. I've been looking for about 6 months now. Yeah.

HIRE ME!!

Lately my big project has been my patio vegetable garden. So far so good. Much more expensive than I anticipated...but that's what happens when you have to pay for dirt. I think in the end it will be worth it, as long as we don't starve waiting for the vegetables to grow. I've run into a dilemma with my garden: how will the vegetables grow if they don't get pollinated? We take this sort of thing for granted (although we should stop in light of Colony Collapse Disorder), but on the third floor, it could present a major problem for me. Right now I have a small colony of honey bees in some leftover firewood. They could serve the purpose, but I don't feel comfortable having them live on my patio as the hive grows. They'll be moved to an open field soon leaving me with my problem: who is going to pollinate my garden? Me, I guess. I'll have to do some research on what they do with the vanilla in Madagascar.

No guarantees on a post again soon, but keep checking out the High Tea Adventure Club.

New Blog

For those interested, I started a new blog, more public in nature and directed to a specific topic and purpose. I'll still have this one as my personal blog. The URL for my new blog is http://privacyforintimates.blogspot.com

I want to know what other women think about this, so be sure to leave comments on that blog and answer the poll questions.

I've been married for more than a month now. The apartment is furnished and most of our gifts have finally made the trek from CA. I came back to a schedule of mostly closing the store, which doesn't make it easy to be a wife and make supper. I like making supper so this has been frustrating. I took it up with my manager and now my schedule promises to give me time to make meals and have relaxing evenings.

Working at this particular Starbucks is like participating in a new urban experiment. Really, that's what the Town Center where I work is as far as I can tell. Most everything you might need is within walking distance if you live in the condos and townhouses nearby, and farther away there are houses which seem to house an active set of walkers and runners since they show up in my store winded and sweaty, but they arrive on foot nonetheless. You can buy groceries, get your haircut, buy a beautiful flower arrangement, go out for ice cream, get your car insured, send a package, get your nails done, go to the bank, buy comic books, furniture, and picture frames, and go out to dinner at a number of nice restaurants. Soon you will be able to gas up your car. And yes, of course, you can get your morning latte. There is really a lot to do. There is a fountain that the little kids play in in their swimming suits and occasional concerts on the lawn. Another aspect that will soon come into play is the offices built directly above some of the shops. This means that we'll not only have local residents milling about, but the people who work there as well. The goal, it would seem, is to have local residents be the ones working in those offices and eating at the restaurants. I think a lot of people, whether they achieve this community centered life, would at least like to. The personal interaction is fascinating. I'm going to try to blog about it in the future.

Announcement

Can I just take this moment to say that I'M GETTING MARRIED IN 100 DAYS! I'm excited, yes, and not exactly sure how to get everything done in time.

Babble

Right now I am procrastinating on what I really should be doing which is working on the save-the-date cards for the wedding and probably writing down ideas for an article to write. I'm planning to take up writing articles for the organization Zac works for in order to make a little extra cash so we can survive getting married. It is more expensive than I had anticipated. I know I was told this, and I don't change my mind, but is it necessary for the start-up costs to be this steep?

"Time is a Piece of Wax...

falling on a termite, who was choking on the splinters."
I don't really understand why Verizon can't change the time on my phone to be up to speed with Daylight Savings Time at the time it actually changes. So yes, I woke up late this morning. What is worse, there is no way for me to change the time myself. They have this cruel little feature called "World Clock" in which you can see what time it is in major cities around the world, even change them for Daylight Savings Time, but you can't change the time on your own phone. I thought maybe they forgot that it was earlier this year, but then randomly, right before I wrote this post, at 1pm, they changed it. As if anyone cared anymore. This was probably an even bigger problem for the people who had started figuring on their phones being an hour off. Now they are running around showing up early to their lunch dates.

Recommendations

Sipping tea is a great way to write a blog I think. While I'm drinking tea I don't like to do very much and it gives me a chance to sit and quitely contemplate without feeling idle.

I went last night to see 300, and last weekend I saw The Queen. I liked them both a lot. I would recommend The Queen to just about anyone, I can't remember anything content-wise that would prohibit anyone but small children from seeing it, but I don't really think it is a movie that would be appreciated by anyone younger than their teens. What was remarkable about it was that it did not really try to make a villian of any person. The movie felt matter-of-fact, showing decent people trying to make their best personal and political decisions. This is not to say that the story lacked conflicts, there were many, but it was presented in such a way as to display the various difficult positions people were put in in the fact of those conflicts. I do highly recommend this movie, it is the sort of movie you could see if you were in just about any mood - except maybe if you were in the mood for an action or sci-fi thriller.

300 cannot be as broadly recommended. There are three "scenes" which could be easily fast forwarded at home to allow for any teenager to see it, but the violence would prohibit most younger children from seeing this movie - it is, after all, rated R. All that aside, this was an amazing movie. It was done in a graphic novel/comic book style, so the colors and the cinematography had a different feel than your typical movie. The other thing that made this movie so enjoyable was that, unlike a modern day war movie, it did not leave you feeling depressed. Rather, the movie created this welling sense of western civilization rising up and lifting high all things great and noble. I suppose this would be an exaggeration of the reality, but it definitely reminded me of the first day of philosophy class with Dr. Mitchell in which he described this battle and the rise of western civilization I really do think that day was one of the best days in my educational career. I don't know if you could love the movie as much if you are not particularly fond of western civilization. It is unashamedly biased that direction. However there are different ways to appreciate things and so I am sure the welling in my soul for western civilization is not the only way to appreciate this movie.

Glorious Revolution

As you can see, my little blog now has a new look and please note the new welcome message and sidebar quotes. Please do not ask where I got those from. And speaking of asking things...I did have to do something I was lothe to do - I got rid of my old comment system. I hold out hope that somewhere in the internet world I can still access all the comments throughout the years, but ultimately if I was ever going to make formatting and updating the blog any easier I would have to loose the old comment system. Blogger now has one, has had one for quite some time, so we can all work together on making good use of it from now on. Check back again this week for new posts and more changes.

Diamonds, Cats, and Neighbors

I really am alive, I promise. I got engaged...in September. That has occupied much of my time since. Right now I'm realizing that I didn't finish this week's to-do list. I could accomplish a little tomorrow, depending on what I decide to do with my day. But the thing that has been occupying my time these past few days is a cat we found out back behind the restaurant. Poor thing was starving. I took him home and have been working to find his owner or some home for him since I can't keep him for a lot of reasons. It certainly has been a crash course in cat care. There I was, practically in the middle of the night at the grocery store buying all manner of cat supplies with a stray cat locked in my car. He's starting to get a little more padding on his little bones and he's getting more playful and more noisy with his mewing. I also discovered tonight that his fur has gotten softer. He seems happy too, which is nice. He's a really great cat, not at all mean or irritable. Today I found a home for him in the event that I don't find the real owner in the next couple days. I'm not that hopeful about finding the real owner since the cat seems to have been outside for quite a while-and this is clearly a housecat.
In my attempts to find the owner I made friends with a lady that lives on the floor below me. She invited me in and we talked for probably an hour. I saw her again today - she rescued me actually. I walked to the grocery store and while I was shopping forgot that I had to walk back and bought way too many things (including a whole rotisserie chicken and a bag of kitty litter). Well as I was attempting to walk home, she happened to be in the same shopping center and gave me a ride home. She really is very nice. Lol, so I'm glad I found the cat. I think maybe I'll invite her to tea in a few days.
For now though, its time for bed. I'll post again someday.

Life Expectancy

I found this article when I was checking my email. Basic summary, different geographic areas and different groups of people in the US have very different life expectancy rates. By very different I mean like 30 years different. I encourage you to actually read the article, it's pretty short. The fact that there are disparities does not surprise me; what I found remarkable was which groups had the higher life expectancy.

Disruption

I got sick. Strepp throat. Thanks Zac.
You see, he got sick and then I got sick. Then he got really sick and I suspected strepp throat which meant that I might have it too. So we went to the doctor together, but I waited to get on the waiting list when we found out his results. His results came back positive, so I went in next - positive. But you already knew that. Antibiotics work wonders though, and I think that come tomorrow I'll be up and about mostly like normal. The good news, that Zac doesn't like, is that since he gave it to me, I got onto antibiotics before my throat ever even got sore. Haha! Guess I shouldn't laugh, but yeah I will.
Someone in my apartment complex seems to be trying to start a garage band. For a few days now they've been playing that darned electric guitar every morning for the whole complex to hear. Then this morning, when I couldn't figure out if it was just someone playing for themselves or if they were actually trying to make a band of it, I heard singing. No, not singing, I heard screeching. Whatever it was, it was my clue that it wasn't going to end any morning soon. What kind of a rock band practices in the morning? I'm sure one of these days an old lady or someone who works all night is going to complain to the landlady.