Finished weeding the garden yesterday (as though weeding the garden is ever FINISHED). Don't even get many WEEDS, but the grass we grow here extends itself underground. If you were grass trying to survive in the Texas heat, YOU'd extend yourselves underground, as well. Makes for nice lawns, but gardens growing alongside these nice lawns are another story.
I'm not growing much this year until fall. Summers have been just too damn hot to grow much in recent years here. THIS year we've had RAIN, RAIN, and more RAIN, but Who Knew THAT would happen? The two tomato plants I bought at Home Depot when we went to order the storm/screen door are extremely healthy looking, and I was eyeing the fence behind them, which is old enough to have some of the fence nails poking out, thinking, "I bet I could maintain the perpendicular-ness of these tomato plants just by hooking a little butcher twine on one of those nails & then making a necklace to grab the tomato plant. Think that would work? I have butcher twine, so that would fit into my zero dollar vegetable garden budget (which already went astray by buying the 2 tomato plants). I refuse to buy/make cages and stuff because I don't want to store them when not in use. Only other things growing are volunteers from last year's plantings and a few things I started inside. I might add that the tomato seeds mentioned previously started inside never made it past the two leaf stage after WEEKS. I’ll probably stick them outside in the dirt somewhere (or on the compost) just because I’m tired of seeing them on my windowsill. There are two pepper plants out there who got the same treatment. They’re still alive, but I’ll believe it when I see something fruit on them.
Sprinkled around an assortment of seeds after weeding. Lettuce, chard, spinach, escarole, arugula, basil, parsley, dill, mustard greens, catalogna, and purslane (Thank you, Diane!). Can't have tomatos without the greens to go with them, right? I knew it was going to rain again soon because the flies were biting like crazy and it did, so they all got soaked into the soil. I'm only using 7/8 of the garden along the fence right now for growing. The remaining eighth is composting. Seriously. I decided not to spend any money on fancy composting contraptions and now just dump my garbage on top of the grass that's growing where it shouldn't be growing, cover it with grass I've pulled from other places where it shouldn't be growing and let the Texas sun and rain do their magic. We have worms galore now! I'll take a spade to that area after I get back from Illinois, turning it over to get the other side.
Speaking of Illinois, that's coming up soon. I'm gonna spend the whole 9 days (July 9 thru 18) with No. 2 unless we can spend one night at the hostel in downtown Chicago. She said it would be okay as long as I didn’t paint any of her walls with milk paint. There were a lot of kinks in the trip planning this year, so some options were no longer available by the time I heard back from people. One option is the hostel. I LOVE the HI-Chicago. It's centrally located in downtown Chicago and a great place to stay, IMO. I've Emailed the manager at HI-Chicago (at least who was the manager LAST year) to see if No. 2 and I can stay there on the night of the 10th. I'll be meeting two friends downtown for lunch on the 11th (wave to there ya go), so it would be easier if it's possible.
Em'll be working almost EVERY day this week because of the holiday. I made him some snack bars (as part of my experimentation program) to give him more energy. The protein bars turned out to be VERY tasty (and almost 90% protein), but he's still coming home and falling asleep almost immediately. He says it's the heat that wears him down. <-- and then he comes home to a woman who refuses to turn on the AC! We DO have a GREAT cross-breeze now with the new storm/screen-door at the front and the windows at the back, though. I have no idea why we waited so long to get that door. Just didn't think about how to cool off the place naturally, I guess. We still need more ceiling fans, but ... in good time.
Also made granola and granola BARS. The granola BARS weren't NEARLY as tasty as the protein bars, so I'll look for another recipe if I decide to make those again. The granola wasn't as good as some I've made in the past, either, so I'll look for another recipe for that, too. I think we have a keeper, though, in the protein bars...at least taste-wise. There aren’t enough to sustain him while I’m gone, so he can purchase his favorite Kellogg strawberry bars to tide him over. I suspect he’ll sigh in relief over that.
Tried to take a few photos, but the batteries from the rechargeable battery thingee don’t seem to be doing anything. Update: Still can't get those to recharge, but some old dead regular batteries sitting around waiting for recycle seemed to work.
On the teeth thing, Heather, I still HAVE teeth because of my dad’s genes. Diane and I have shared dentist stories for a while now, and I suspect she’ll be here soon to share another with you. I don’t think I can blame Lucky’s genes for my 5 cavities, though. I suspect that I’m to blame for that as in “not consuming enough calcium”. As a post-menopausal woman, I should be consuming calcium like there’s no tomorrow, but I haven’t been doing that. I think both Em and I went through a stretch where we thought milk upset our stomachs (lactose intolerant). PFFT! In the last week I’ve eaten granola with milk for breakfast, had a yogurt “chaser” a few hours later and then a whole glass of milk with lunch (sandwich with CHEESE). NO upset stomachs! I ordered a yogurt maker yesterday, BTW. Don’t know if it’ll arrive before or after my trip, though.
Thinking about lack of calcium, I’ve suffered almost this whole week from a stiff neck and upper back ache. My neck is STILL tight! What’s wrong here? I think, “Maybe this is what those women felt/experienced a few days before they found themselves with the Dowager’s humps.”
Last, but not least, our Move-On Climate Party will be this coming Saturday night (July 7). The Move-On folks suggest that you invite friends, family, neighbors, etc. beforehand, but I figured nobody would be interested and I received confirmation from that today by asking my neighbor across the street. He’s a trucker and says he’s a right-winger, but he also said that he’d relay the info to his wife (because he might be on the road again and ANY party might be a good one for HER).
I need to remember to get that pork out of the freezer in time to pull it. I already made a test batch of iced tea (Southern-style), but I don't think Em's tasted it yet because he falls asleep as soon as he gets home from work.
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Crap. I just deleted a big, ol' long entry by mistake instead of submitting. *sigh* I'll be back to try again later.
Let's try this again...
Yep, the string on the fence nails would work fine, just make sure it's not so thin and tight that it will cut into the stems resting against it, kwim? They'll saw themselves off one of these days when they get to swaying in the breeze.
I used to get sick eating dairy but I don't anymore. I don't know what caused it then and I don't know what caused me to get over it. I'm glad because it certainly broadened my dietary horizons but I still don't like dairy much.
Oh, my new dentist gave me a lecture on my first appointment about the upper back/neck soreness. He says a lot of that comes from not sleeping enough hour OR enough hours WELL. He laid out studies for me on everything and rambled on about it. Of course, now I don't remember the details of it but I did take the important part of it with me -- get more and better rest at night. Yeah, like that's going to happen just because I want it to.
Dentist. Hoo, boy. I just had another long cleaning session Tuesday. Next one is the 17th. Did I tell you how much it's all going to cost?? Not including all of the cleanings, the already-completed root canals, and a few othe miscellaneous things, he estimates $10,000 to $12,000 to get everything fixed back up the way it should be pre-moron dentist. Geez. Now, excuse me while I go to town to stand on a street corner to pay for this...
Have a great trip!
Em mentioned that sleeping in a wrong position could cause what once was called "a crick in the neck", but it didn't come on until mid-day, so it just seemed to be sitting in wait for a vulnerable moment. It's finally gone now, thank goodness, because I didn't want to burden No. 2 with a mom who couldn't move her neck.
We haven't seen the film yet, but I learned last evening that there's a situation brought to light in the movie, Sicko in which a woman is told that she can either have all her teeth pulled (for almost nothing) or spend (forgot large amount) to get them fixed. She hadn't already been raped by a dentist who did everything wrong, so her amount was less than yours, but STILL.
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