We got a late start on planning the garden and started all the plants on Saturday, which is late for almost everything we’re planting.
BR is for BRoccoli, T is for Tomato, E is for Eggplant
We may end up with a late harvest on some of these things or need to supplement with purchased plants. This was done on the back of a page of notes, which included this kitten drawn on a tea stain left by some idiot (me) plopping their used teabag on the steno pad we take random notes on. (oops.)
Cat in pen and tea stain.
It’s really hard to think about planning the garden when the days continue to struggle to get into the 50s F.
I’m super close to finished with my Lavender Zig-Zag sweater, but I’ve got to put it up for a little bit. I’ve got myself a lousy case of tennis elbow in my right arm and I’ve got to avoid overdoing it for a couple of weeks while I heal back up.
Zig-Zag Lace, lurking
Things I’m not currently supposed to do:
Crochet
Knit
Bike
Grip anything larger around than the circle made by touching my index finger to my thumb.
Grip anything smaller than the circle made by touching my index finger to my thumb.
Lift anything with my palm facing down.
I’m getting laser treatments, which seem to be helping, but I’ve still got at least two weeks before I’m supposed to return to full normal activity with my right arm.
Remember that time you enthusiastically waved at your friend but soon realized that they were a complete stranger? What about the time when that incy-wincy pebble tripped you in front of all of your classmates? For some of us, it feels like these awkward moments come looking for us.
My mom shrieks like a child when she’s startled. Some time back, when cellphones weren’t really common, I caught a glimpse of her unexpectedly at Walmart. Today, I’d just text her and tell her I was in Walmart, too. I was in my 20s, though, and figured I’d sneak up on her hug her for the giggle of her shrieking about it.
Now, I should have had some pause about this and not just because giving your mom a heart attack for the Lulz is kind of rude. For years, my mom has had close friends come up to her and give her crap for not saying hi when they saw her out and about. It always happened when Mom hadn’t been anywhere near where the alleged incident happened and she had an alibi to prove it.
Mom called this mystery doppelganger her evil twin and chalked it up to people not really paying attention when they were out and about. I really didn’t think about it much, other than when people were telling Mom they’d seen her twin again.
I should have been thinking about that.
Just as I was about to pounce, the person in front of me turned just enough that I could see that it wasn’t actually my mom. It was Mom’s doppleganger and I almost bear-hugged them in the middle of Walmart. ?
Happy Awkward Moments Day! May your day be blissfully free of new awkward happenings.
It’s St. Patrick’s day and my family has Irish heritage. Since I’m probably not going to get out to celebrate the wearin’ of the green since it’s the middle of the week, the least I can do is some eating of the green.
“Eat more vegetables” goal is high on my list. It’s not always easy. I work full-time at my day job and I’m always trying to carve out more time to write, so I do things to make it easier on myself.
Bok choi makes a great substitute for a head of cabbage in colcannon. Just sayin’
Cook at home.
It’s easier to add more vegetables to your meals when you’re in control of every aspect of meal production.
Plan your meals before you go to the grocery store.
The circulars with the specials in them come out on Wednesdays in my area, so I make sure to sit down and do my meal planning on Wednesday or Thursday evening, before heading out to the grocery store. I look for any veggies on sale and try to plan meals around them.
We also have the good fortune to have an Aldi nearby, so we shop there. The produce is generally good and it’s well priced.
Clean and chop any vegetables that you’re going to need for recipes for the week ahead.
I try to do this on Sunday. Sometimes the weekend gets away from me and I end up doing it Monday night as part of Monday night’s meal preparation.
It’s harder to make an excuse to not use veggies when they’re already cut up and ready to use.
These colors make me happy.
Don’t have time to prep veggies? Check out the frozen veg.
There are all kinds of frozen vegetables on the market. The store brands are very often the same quality as the name brand products, or even better. Throw them in a soup or just warm them up for a quick side dish.
Snack on vegetables
Mamá kept carrot sticks in the fridge for snacks. I’ve started doing the same thing myself.
I am not fashionable. I read fashion blogs and my Instagram feed is full of fashionistas.
When I was young, I’d pour over the pages of magazines: Cosmo, Elle, Seventeen, Vogue – anything I could beg or borrow. Back then, I thought if I did I could crack the code I could learn to look like, well, a normal person, and then maybe I could camouflage all the awkward mannerisms and hide the embarrassing things that I liked (like aliens and monsters) that apparently made me too much of a dweeb to have friends.
It didn’t though.
I never had the grace or beauty that goes with models or the effortless sense of style that some people come by naturally. Some people just seem to know how to put an outfit together or what to do with their hair and make-up.
I like what I like and I used to believe that what I like made me all wrong because it didn’t fit the mold.
Handmade, upcycled, or generally unique pieces speak to me. So do black, very dark shades of gray, and dusty earthy tones. Dressing’s about expressing yourself. It’s art that you wear, whether it’s just your favorite kicks and a tracksuit or the latest designer original.
When I was a kid, I wanted to emulate those around me to fit in, but when you get right down to it both frilly dresses and strict business formal both feel the same way to me: Like I’m cosplaying someone else.
If I’m being honest, full Goth attire feels that way to me, too. I’m a bit more Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Auntie-core and quite a lot less Lydia Deets straight out goth, at least as I’ve gotten older.
Simple, practical clothes are most comfortable for me. Give me jeans and a tee-shirt, and maybe a sweater if it’s cold, and I’m happy, as long as it can go with me from the convention hall, down to the river, on the bike, or out to my garden. I’m pretty much the little artsy geek girl next door, and I’m good with myself just the way I am.
There’s something that keeps me trying to keep at least a veneer of “normal” on my clothes, mostly because it’s easier to dress and go if I mostly don’t have to think about whether or not a shirt is appropriate to where I’m going. Pay no attention to the skull necklace and spiked earrings I’m wearing; Look at the french blue polo and the nice black cardigan.
Still, sometimes it’s nice when what I like also turns out to be stylish. I’ve been positively giddy about the current trend for crocheted things, and that lavender has come back on-trend.
I can work with that.
Lavender? Yes. Crochet lace? Yes! Practical for summer? Well, I guess we’ll find out.
Since the 1991 Addams Family movie came out, I’ve toyed with getting the Addams family motto tattoed along the ulnar edge of my right arm. At some point I added getting the Sto Helit family motto on my left ulnar edge to match.
I’ve talked myself out of it each time, not because I don’t want a second tattoo, but because I’m not sure I’m committed to having fake Latin where everyone can see it.
Morticia: As an Addams, you understand completely, don’t you? Fester: As an Addams, yes, I do.
And our credo, “Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc”…”We gladly feast on those who would subdue us”. Not just pretty words.
Morticia Addams, The Addams Family, 1991
If the Addams credo, “We gladly feast on those who would subdue us” was actually translated into Latin it would be more like
That said, it’s about as accurate as most ‘Latin’ credos from the middle ages, so the original has that going for it.
Likewise, author Sir Terry Pratchet calls out the Sto Helit motto of “fear not the reaper” as
Non Timetus Messor
Hogfather, Terry Pratchet
But when he was knighted in 2009, the motto given to him was the more gramatically correct
Noli Timere Messorem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett
So what’s a person to do? Go with the bad Latin so the fans of both will recognize the inspiration or go with the correct Latin so future archeologists who find my mortal remains will know that I knew better?
It feels like forever since I started a project. This one is called Blue Moon (link to designer’s website) and was part of a crochet along in November.
I’m using two skeins of Knitcircus Trampoline held doubled. The colorway is called Mischief Managed (discontinued), which I bought because it reminded me of the colors in Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. I’d recommend the colorway Christopher Robin as a very similar substitute.
Chocolate cake can be dry, but more often I just find it cloyingly sweet or overwhelmingly chocolate.
Marble cake is the worst of both white and chocolate cake.
Yellow cake seems to always be moist and chocolate frosting adds the perfect kiss of decadence.
Amusingly, my grammar checking program wants to make it yellowcake, which would be an entirely different kind of cake and about the only cake that I find worse than marble cake.
Little by little, I’m planting a Waking the Witch garden.
Oh, I tell people it’s an English Cottage Garden, but I’m choosing my plants specifically based on the lyrics of Kate Bush’s Waking the Witch.
You won’t burn (red, red roses) You won’t bleed (pinks and posies)
I have red and white and purple pinks and Fuschia peonies the color of the background of Kate’s picture on the cover of Hounds of Love to go into posies. I have lavender (of course), salvia for healing, black hellebore (Lenten roses), and black irises.
This year I got my red, red roses as one of my garden based birthday presents.
Confess to me, girl (red, red roses, go down)
They’re supposed to bloom all summer, and they sure seem to be giving it a good showing so far. for things. With any luck, these will be summers of roses for the rest of my life.
When I was a child, I wanted to be Batman when I grew up.
Not as a job, mind you. Just as a thing I did in my spare time for fun, I guess. I mean, Bruce Wayne’s actual job was running a technology company. That said, there were many other reasons I couldn’t be Batman aside from the fact that Batman is a fictional character, not the least of which was my unenviable lack of grace and athleticism. I was once held in at recess for a month in elementary school so the gym teacher could do remedial gym with me; I’m just that graceful.
Calvin and Hobbes 06/04/1987 (c) Bill Watterson
My mom encouraged everything she could to try to remedy the problem. Dance classes through a summer program for Talented and Gifted Children to expose them to the arts. Gymnastics lessons as part of intermural sports league. Modeling lessons with a friend of the family who had some background in it (I guess) because that friend needed child models for a local show.
All of it helped, and I loved all of it. but I never got anything resembling “good” at any of it. I became adequate at best. Somewhat less likely to trip over a color change in the carpet and black both of my eyes because I hit the only nearby object in the room at an odd angle.
Given time and practice, I might have achieved more, but that’s the kicker: There just wasn’t the time because all of those things cost more money than our family could reasonably spend on something that wasn’t actively keeping food on the table and a roof over our heads.
It didn’t ever occur to me that I couldn’t be Batman because I was a girl.
I don’t remember learning to crochet.
I remember crocheting, but not how I learned to do it. It’s fallen out of my memory. I guess my first project was a “Hot Pad” (read: Swatch) that my maternal grandmother used for years after I made it.
My favorite project to make was a stuffed toy octopus that would probably be called an amigurumi, but this was long before amigurumi “hit” in the United States. It had a single crochet body and its legs were curly double crochet spirals that also made fun bookmarkers.
I made as many of those bookmarkers as my mom would give me yarn to use up, usually scraps from her own projects. I gave them to friends or people who I wanted to be my friends. Really, I’d give them away to anyone who seemed to be reading a book and would take one. Sometimes people would take one and throw it away later when I wasn’t looking, and I found more than one of my bookmakers in the trash at school.
I don’t have words to describe the betrayal and pain I felt when that happened. I wanted people to be my friends more than anything in the world. People, it seemed, didn’t want me for a friend.
My current favorite thing to crochet now is “things for around the neck” (scarves, shawls, cowls) because I have had arthritis in my neck since my 30s and it hurts when it gets cold. I’m very picky about who I give my craft projects to now. Crafting, especially crochet, is my biggest creative outlet these days, a gift of my life that I used to turn yarn into something useful. I’d rather not squander it on someone who won’t appreciate the gift.
I’ve always wanted to be a “real writer”
A real writer who makes a living writing books.
It’s the earliest thing I can remember wanting to be when I was little. I would write and illustrate storybooks for fun. In school, my writing was how I was identified as a “Talented and Gifted” child and was given access to opportunities that other students didn’t get despite the fact that they would have benefitted from them.
I studied English literature at the University. One of my endorsements was in non-fiction and creative writing. I’m never quite as happy doing anything else as I am when I’m writing.
I’m over 50 now. I still don’t make my living as a writer. I haven’t been published (beyond my own blog) in over 15 years. Somehow, I’ve gone terribly wrong along the way.
Figuring out how I change that is my theme for my next trip around the sun.
