The Gardening Edition

I know everyone and his/her dog are talking about what they are growing right now, but I'm going to too because 'tis Spring and a homesteader's thoughts turn to gardening fancy.

To complement this whole gardening post, I've added a "garden seeds" (Hometown Seeds) link on the right hand side, and I invite everyone to check out Theresa Loe's amazing gardening blog, Garden Fresh Living.

On our little homestead, dh has been busy planting and tending (while I sit on my fat duff and write stupid blog posts about it). Here he is, watering the broccoli seedlings:
Dh is trying a biodegradable corn-starch based cover to cut down on weeds. He's growing cabbage and broccoli through the cover.
I checked on our asparagus; alas, nothing is up yet.
Hmmm, the blueberries aren't doing much either:
Inside the greenhouse is a different story. Here are some kale that have over-wintered (among the weeds):
Dh started some (more) broccoli from seeds, along with celery, frisee, and red cabbage. Can't remember what the other trays were. Will have to ask him and come back to fill in. My mind is like a sieve. It's sad.
Here's ds#1 picking cilantro from the greenhouse. The tall stuff growing with the cilantro are leeks.
A close-up of the very cute leeks:
This is one of the fruit trees that we need to put into the ground; it's a nectarine. The others are a peach and a cherry.
More seedlings in the greenhouse, from left to right: choi sum, bok choi (which didn't germinate well, so there's hardly any there), and radishes.
And a peek at our house in its drab winter surroundings. The little plot you see in the foreground is what we call the small northern garden.
Well, that's it for now, folks. Not too exciting yet unless you're out there knee-deep in dirt doing the work. I forgot to mention that dh also planted carrots and beets. They're not the best spring crops; they do better in the fall when there's a much longer cool period for them to develop lots of sugar. But, it'll still be nice to have a few in the spring.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

The hardest part of...anything...is letting go

I'd been thinking a lot, on and off, that I make life much more complex for myself than it needs to be - Dh reminds me that often too - like taking on an extra couple of blogs and extra hobbies.

But, I believe this recent identity theft incident, eating up my spare time and brain cells, may prove to be the impetus that gets me to really simply and de-stress my life.

Letting go will encompass several important areas:
1) home - this will include major de-cluttering; donating books, CD-ROMs, etc., to the library instead of trying to sell them on Half.com

2) mind - I need to forget old notions that just may not apply. For example, I caught myself thinking, "damn, I just wasted a whole weekend," and was starting to feel depressed, but I caught myself in time. I asked myself, "am I feeling happy? Did I get enough sleep? Have I cleaned bathrooms like I usually do?" The answers were "yes" all around. So, I've not really wasted the weekend if I'm still at peace with myself and I'm happy.

2) extraneous - no more picking up new hobbies and trying to pursue things that lead to dead ends.

Speaking of ends, we picked the last of the mache from the greenhouse. It made a beautiful salad (here it is, pre-washing).The meal itself was pretty darned tasty too...organic hotdogs on homemade buns. Dh made a cauliflower dish using Mark Bittman's Cauliflower with Garlic and Anchovies recipe in his How to Cook Everything book; it was delish.Letting go: it's a little sad, but it'll all lead to a lighter place: lighter home, lighter heart, lighter mind.

Do you have something you need to let go of? Old textbooks that you'll never use again? A grudge? Or an ugly something you inherited?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

An odd assortment of thoughts

I'm not very coherent these days (those who know me for more than several years will chime in and say, "what do you mean 'these days'?" but I will ignore them); I get the feeling the most of my future posts will be a random collection of loosely connected, or thoroughly dis-connected, thoughts. (how I feel...gee, how did the kids know this when they created this thing?)

An update on the credit card fraud issue. I suspect it's more than that. After Bank of America canceled our card, I had 3 things pop up that were purportedly ordered by me. One was a fitness video: the company called to say that they had trouble charging it to my card. Well, yeah. Another was a book club subscription; a box of books from The Good Cook book club arrived in the mail yesterday. Another is the Book of the Month Club. Oy. So now I have to get a hold of them to let them know that I didn't sign up for either of them. I wonder if there are more to come... As if life weren't harried enough without stupid, extra things to stress over.

Have any of you ever had your identity stolen?

Dh and the boys got some planting done in the greenhouse last weekend: they put in spinach, various lettuce, and different Asian greens. Looove Asian greens! They also dug up and transplanted horseradish. Dh made the best horseradish sauce with some of the roots and shared some starts with the people who responded that they wanted some. Lisa said that it is next to impossible to buy in town. Dh says that it's due to its only being harvested at very specific times.

And for a totally unrelated thought: the last time I did any *real* writing was years ago. Sure I did NaNoWriMo the last two years, but I mean the kind of writing that I actually can picture a sale with. Well, thanks to the most excellent Gotham Writers' Workshop's Science Fiction class, I may have one or two stories ready for submission before long.

The experience of this class has been so good, in fact, that I am tempted to take SFII in April. But, without credit card to use and feeling inundated by life, I may just wait until next year.

I know that some of you enjoy sewing, so wanted to share this video for sewing kids' tutus that I found over at the About.com Sewing forum.

I have to say that having life so busy (and not all in a good way), plus reading The Happiness Project book, has helped me not to dwell on the credit card/ID theft issue as much, although it does eat at me that there are such people out there who don't deserve the free oxygen they breathe.

But, on a happier note, if you have a special someone whom you've been forgetting to tell how special he/she is, go check out Suzanne's post on Forever Friends. :)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Fraud and Sappiness

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So it's finally happened: someone pilfered our credit card number and made a bunch of little charges on our card. AARP??? What the heck? Who steals someone's card number and charge an AARP membership on it?

Even though as a socially conscientious person, I can't love Bank of America, I was very impressed with the expediency of their noticing the fraudulent charges and notifying us.

To start off an otherwise lovely Monday morning - there's nothing like waking up to sunshine! - I'm sharing a song that's been running through my head for a few days. I want to qualify this by saying I am not normally a sappy person. I abhor chick flicks and love action/adventure/sci-fi movies and books. This song, though, brings me back to a very specific time and place: Europe, 1986. That was one of the best time I'd had on a trip, and every time I hear this song, it immediately transports me back. Hope you don't mind a little bit of sappiness today!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Under the Willow giveaway!

I'm back, sort of. I have a million (slight exaggeration) emails to catch up on (mostly read quickly and delete, but that still takes a lot of time). In the meantime, I want to do you a favor and tell you about the Under the Willow Gift Shoppe's giveaway! ;)If you've never used Carrie's laundry soap, you are totally missing out. I can't recommend it highly enough. My favorite scents are Home for the Holidays and Lavender Grace, but you can be the judge. Carrie offers this laundry soap (made using her own handmade soaps!) in many scents, and they are all amazing. But enough sitting around reading this; go enter, or go buy some!

p.s. the giveaway scent is Whispering Rose!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams