The green, green grass … and hay … and weeds

Side-of-the-road weeds, walking back home.

Oh, my, are the weeds ever, um, weedy.

I'm at a loss. Seriously. There's no way I can get a handle on them.

Maybe cardboard. Just cover them up and throw mulch on top and call it done. But I don't even have the motivation to do that. I just close my eyes when I walk down the driveway.

Which I did (walk, not close my eyes) yesterday! It was only two miles, but that was more than the previous day, and way more than half of last week. I wasn't short of breath, I wasn't tired, and my hip didn't hurt until I'd turned around to come back home.

I rested for a little bitty bit and then looked at my list – yes, I really did make one – and chose to work on the upstairs office.

Ran the sweeper, cleaned out two large lidded tubs of stuff, and made a workstation/craft table out of two filing cabinets and a door. The two tubs held some treasures – hand-signed photos and letters from West Virginia politicians Robert C. Byrd, Jay Rockefeller and Nick Rahall – along with two trash bags of detritus collected over several years.

I felt so good after I was done I almost wanted a cigarette. (I'm glad to report my mood has picked up every so slightly.)

I also did the laundry, ordered some supplies I need for the two meetings I'm doing (one in June, one in September), started the Keynote project (I'm loving Keynote, by the way), and added these items to the to-do list:

Organize

• Pinterest
• Dropbox
• Drive

How sad is it that my organizational tools end up needing organizing?

For instance, my Dropbox has a knitting folder. So every time I find a knitting pattern I want to keep (but not print), I throw it in that folder. But knitting pattern titles are sometimes not especially descriptive. Would you know, for instance, that KFI_free_pattern-169143.pdf is a pattern for a large over-the-shoulder bag? No. You wouldn't. And neither would I.

So my plan is to put all the bag (mitten/cardigan/pullover/scarf) patterns in their own sub-folders. I want to do this with all the recipes, as well.

Which. Will. Take. A. Long. Time.

Too bad I just can't throw cardboard and mulch over the digital weeds.

I may have solved my sleep problem

At least for now, anyway.

What had been happening is that I would, for whatever reason, wake up in the middle of the night after about four or five hours of sleep. And then my brain would start churning. I wear a lot of different volunteer hats, and it seems like all of the groups I'm associated with are doing something in the next few weeks.

So a couple days ago I wrote everything down. With a pen and paper, not with an app on my phone. It ended up being two grocery-list size pages long. And that did the trick. For the past two nights I've gotten eight-plus hours of sleep, straight through, no interruptions.

It makes sense. I guess I was anxious about forgetting something that needed to be done. The deadlines are a ways off, so nothing has to be done RIGHT NOW. But it was kinda cool to cross off a couple things the same day I made the list.

I didn't even look at it yesterday. And slept well last night.

So that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. It's the KRRE Cure for Insomnia: Write it down!

We're in for it now

A great weekend on tap, weather wise, and not much in the way of commitments. My to-do list might actually get to-done.

One thing that got done last night was the endless garter-stitch cotton scarf I've been working of forever. Well, it seems like forever, as that's the nature of both garter stitch and scarves. But it's very cool and I'm glad it's done. I've never worn scarves as accessories, but these little floaty ones are fun and flattering, and I think I'll get a lot of use from this.

If I don't give it to my daughter for her birthday, which I'm seriously thinking of doing. I have a huge cone of this slubby cotton yarn and could make another one for me. Someday. Maybe.

I can't even remember when I started knitting this one. Seriously, though, if I don't have something compelling to watch on television, I don't knit. And I especially don't just sit and knit endless garter-stitch scarves.

It's good to have options, though.

I need to mow later today, when it dries up a bit. We had a lot of rain yesterday, including thunder and lightning and a brief blip of a power outage, while I was working on that annual report – another seemingly endless project that is sooooo close to being done. Fortunately a career in computer graphics teaches one to save, save, save, and I didn't have to redo much of the work.

My chore list includes fixing the rowing machine, and I do believe that's going to happen today. Using the rower for 20 to 30 minutes a day would accomplish more than simply hoisting dumbbells, and it's a shame for that equipment to just sit in the garage unused. I don't mind letting go of the elliptical at all. But when I was working out in a gym 20 years ago, I got a lot of benefit from the rower. I'm not quite ready to give up on using mine.

Fixing it is a messy job and one I've put off far too long. I hope that making it an intention here, in public, will spur me to actually make the repair – which should only take half an hour or so.

Later this week we're supposed to have a lot of rain, which will be a good time to take care of the "sewing" section of the to-dos. We rarely have rainy days where there isn't at least a brief window for walking outdoors, though, so I expect to keep that streak going.

And now that spring has truly sprung … the herb bed and vegetable garden need a lot of attention. Tomorrow will be the perfect day for that.

I hope you both have a great weekend. I'm planning to.

I'd better be done with that list …

because today's the day! My dad's widow and my brother are already on the road, driving up from Florida. She is dropping him off here and then traveling on to Ohio tomorrow to visit her children. My brother will be spending the week with us. We're going to Ohio Monday to inter my dad's ashes.

Only these few things remain to be done:

I'm hoping my brother can help me with the screen door. It was on the to-do list long before I knew he was coming, so the extra pair of handy hands will knock that one out in no time. (My husband is great with ideas, talk therapy and even surgery, but not so great at plumbing, gardening or screen door repair.)

I've staked some of the tomatoes, but that's an early-early-early morning job. You see, tomatoes need lots of sun in order to grow, and if you're out there staking them mid-day, well the sun is beating down on you and you'll quickly become exhausted and hot and cranky. My discomfort trumps my OCD-ness about unfinished chores when it comes to staking tomatoes.

Speaking of tomatoes, Winnie asked for clarification about volunteers. The only tomato I know for sure that could be named a Volunteer is the Cherokee Purple, which is native to Tennessee, the Volunteer State. The volunteers which have sprung up in my herb bed started from seeds which were deposited there last year when we were using that spot as a compost pile.

I usually find a volunteer or two in the vegetable garden. I move the tomatoes from one area of the garden to another each year, to reduce the opportunity for disease from year to year. There have always been fallen tomatoes and, thus, seeds, in the ground when I put the garden to bed for the winter (cough, cough … I'm really not much of a fall gardener). It's kind of amazing that we spend so much time in March and April babying those seeds indoors so we can transplant the seedlings when the soil warms up, and then still find plants that have started from seed growing randomly, wherever they've happened to land.

I'll tidy up the refrigerator when I get home from work today. The donation container deadline is Saturday, and I don't think my brother will mind my taking time to do that while he's here. The garden stuff will get done when it gets done. (I'm reallyreallyreally glad I'm not dependent on my garden to feed us for a year. This would be a pretty good year to starve, I'm afraid!)

As always, thanks for reading. I hope your Wednesday is going to be as fun as mine will be! (I haven't seen my brother in two years – too long!)

Ready, ready, ready (or nearly so) to …

1. Welcome my brother for a visit next week.

My little brother [17 months younger than I] hasn't ever visited me. He lives in Florida, so I've seen him several times in the past few years as I traveled there to be with my dad. He's only been north of the Mason-Dixon line a handful of times since he moved to Florida 40 years ago.

My father's widow is [finally] interring Dad's ashes, and my brother is driving up with her, staying with me for a few days and then flying back. She will be staying in Ohio with her children for a few weeks.

There wasn't much to do to get ready for his visit – we just needed to dig out the guest room, which ends up being a repository for all the stuff we don't know what to do with. Which really means we have too much stuff.

At any rate, I'm ready to see him and the house is ready for him to see. Heh.

2. Co-host an ice cream social honoring a state legislator.

I've never done anything like this before. I've hosted plenty of parties, here at home and, when I worked in an office, I hosted a couple going-away receptions. I helped my dad's wife plan his 75th surprise birthday party.

The delegate who has represented my voting district for more than a decade is not running for re-election. She has done so much for her constituents, and it just feels right to honor and thank her. The county Democratic executive committee, along with my group, the Democratic women's club, are organizing the event, but really it's the women's group who is doing all the work. [Go figure.]

It happens next Saturday. I've made name tags, the guest book, sent reminders, purchased the fun and colorful tableware, and designed and distributed posters and invitations. The only thing left to do is create some kind of donation receptacle to coordinate with the very colorful tableware and I'll be as close to ready as I'll ever be. 

3. Ward off vampires.

The softnecks came out of the ground yesterday, and not a moment too soon. A couple of them are bursting through their outer covering, just as Anna's were. Most of them are fine. I'll put the more mature ones in the garlic keeper for immediate use, and braid the rest. 

The rest of the hardnecks will be harvested Sunday, because we're leaving today to help

4. Turn West Virginia BLUE!

West Virginia's state Democratic convention begins today, in Charleston, and I'm a delegate. I'm also a candidate to be a delegate to the national convention in Charlotte in September. Am I excited?!?!? In the words of the former part-time governor of Alaska, "You betcha!"

West Virginia doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of turning blue this election cycle, even though registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. President Obama would have a better chance of carrying West Virginia if he were blue. [There. I said it. Some WV voters are racists. As evidenced by the fact that 41 percent of them voted for an incarcerated felon rather than the incumbent President in the May primary.]  

But going to the state convention will be interesting and entertaining, at the least, and I'm sure it will be a good networking opportunity. And I don't have to organize anything or make anything to get there. I did have to clean the car for the trip, because we're carpooling with another couple. But it needed to be cleaned anyway.

So there you have it. Now you know why that to-do list has been such a focus for me this week. It's good to have deadlines, maybe just not so many at once. After the reception next Saturday, life should calm down and I should be able to get back to Walking and Gardening in the Middle of Nowhere. [Sounds like a good title for the blog, doesn't it?] Hope your weekend ROCKS! Hope mine does, too.

I'll take my nervous breakdown now, thankyouverymuch

I'm tired. I'm tired of being busy. I'm tired of accommodating Other People. I'm tired of to-do lists and chores and things hanging over my head. It seems like I never stop, there's always another thing on the list, something undone that needs to be done now.

When life gets crazy like it is now, I either sleep too much (Friday: 10 hours; Saturday: 11 hours) or too little (last night: six hours).

The helluvit is, I bring this on myself. I'm in charge of my schedule, for the most part, and I can opt in or out of events and commitments and projects. Obviously I have opting IN down pat. It's the opting OUT I need a little help with.

My to-do list is in duplicate – one is handwritten and stuck to the refrigerator and the other is front-and-center on my Google homepage, all neat and tidy and prioritized. Only one of the 17 items on the digital list is "low" priority, and only one item is crossed off.

So what did I do all weekend? Swept and mopped the acre (well, it seems like an acre anyway) of floors in the house. Mowed three acres of "lawn." Walked, a little. Did laundry, a lot (the only reason I was able to cross off "clean the bathroom in the garage" was because the washer overflowed).

While it's satisfying to cross things off the list, I have trouble seeing the things done (maybe because there aren't very many "done" things?), and concentrate instead on the things undone, which – when it's all written out like that – is overwhelming and leads to inertia. And computer solitaire.

And then there are the normal, everyday things that aren't on either list, but which still clutter my brain: Is the milk still good enough to make yogurt? (It is.) Do I have time to bake a couple loaves of bread to stash in the freezer? (And if I do, will I have to mop the kitchen again?)

The only way this busy-ness would come to a halt is if someone died. Or had a nervous breakdown.

I'm not quite ready to kick the bucket.

P.S. If you're wondering where you, too, can get jars like empty jar #2, I found sets of them here. Crate and Barrel also sells them individually. 

It's a beautiful morning

Apologies in advance if you're going to be hearing the Rascals' version of today's post title All. Day. Long. (I hate earworms, too.)

Thankfully, the derision by the national media I expected over the spectacular primary showing by a federal inmate over a sitting President was kept to a minimum. Perhaps they realize it's politically incorrect to point out the stereotypical hillbilly mentality.

What I didn't expect was the complete dearth of opinion from the local outlets. There were no opinion pieces in the paper and the local news stations ignored the issue completely. Maybe the thinking is if they ignore it, it will go away. Somehow I think racism doesn't just "go away."

Gingerzingi, I loved your comment. (I love everyone's comments, but to read that someone thought the whole thing was a joke … ah, one can only wish it were so.)

Time to move on. Fair warning, though: As a devoted Democrat and president of the local Dem women's group, expect to see more political stuff in the next six months as Election Day draws near. (I love that I get to vote for President Obama twice!)

Yesterday was a brutal day at the garden center. It wasn't that the work was so hard – how hard is it, really, to take dozens of baby plants out of small containers and stuff them into larger ones? But it was chilly and drizzly and we didn't have many customers to break the chilly, drizzly monotony. I was exhausted when I got home, and asleep by 8 p.m. Ten hours later, I woke up, rarin' to go.

Today I will:

• make mozzarella
• make yogurt
• weed part of the vegetable garden
• weed the front landscape bed
• plant two bleeding hearts and three more herby things
• dig up a couple dozen poppies to sell at the garden center (the poppies have taken over my vegetable garden – they used to be a tiny border, now they're a field!)
• do laundry (there's always laundry)

And if my husband happens to go somewhere for an hour or so, I'll take that time to mop the floors. If I mop them when he's home, he invariably needs to get something from the room with the wet floor. No matter which room it is. If he doesn't leave today, then yay! I don't have to mop! Heh.

May the Fourth be with you …

Forty-two years ago, at about this time of the morning, I woke up in labor. Twelve hours later I was wheeled into an operating room, where my firstborn was delivered by C-section.

My dad, who was in the Ohio Air National Guard, was testing for his private pilot's license as I struggled to deliver his granddaughter. He also was on alert, due to the situation at Kent State that led up to the events of that day. (He was not called up for active duty, thankfully.)

I wasn't politically active at that time. Had I been, I might have been in Kent protesting Nixon's invasion of Cambodia. My life took a different turn and there I was, almost 19, a baby having a baby.

That baby, 42 years later, amazes me. She's raising two children, working full-time and going to law school. She's bright, witty, savvy, pretty, energized and organized. She's a good example for me and for everyone who knows her, especially those children.

Happy birthday, H!

I managed to incorporate quite a bit of yoga into my garden workout yesterday, but I didn't accomplish nearly as much as I wanted or needed to. I finished the mowing and trimming first, then grabbed a bucket and started pulling weeds in the strawberry and onion beds. It was dreadfully hot, and I became physically ill – dizzy, sick to my stomach, definitely dehydrated and overheated – and had to stop after about three hours.

After I recovered, I made a list of the outdoor chores I need to do before it's too late. And by "too late" I mean optimal planting time will have come and gone, and weeds will have taken over where mulching should have been done.

I was driving myself crazy trying to remember it all. At the tippy top of the list is the word FENCE. I don't have a permanent fence around the vegetable garden. I put up a battery-operated electric fence each year to keep the deer out. There are plenty of hoof prints out there already. It takes about an hour to plant the posts and string the wire, and it'll be very satisfying to cross that one off the list. I'm hoping there will be enough time (today's a work-at-Groundworks day) to put a short fence up for the blackberries, as well. And since one thing leads to another, I'd like to get those berries mulched while I'm out there.

And that, in a nutshell, is the story of my life. Once I get started, I can't seem to stop. As I've written previously, it's why I rarely sew – I want to start and finish a project all in one session. Gardening is a good thing for me to do, as it teaches me patience, Grasshopper, patience. And list-making is a good thing for me to do as well. The simple act of reading it shows me it's impossible to get everything done at once.

I wonder how I ever came to love knitting as much as I do. I don't write about it much because how much is there to say about endless rows of blue stockinette stitch? I'm a couple inches into the longest section of the second half. A summer's worth of Mad Men should wrap it up. Something to look forward to!

This post has certainly been a long and winding road, hasn't it? Birthing, protesting, violence, illness, gardening, knitting, you name it. Something for everyone – I'm the gift that keeps on giving! Heh.

Making her list, checking it twice

Remember that to-do list I posted a couple days ago? Well, it's ta-done!

Didn't walk yesterday, darn it, but did take two-milers
Sunday and Wednesday and three-milers Monday and Tuesday.

I wish I could show you her sweet face, but that's not how I roll.
Each grandchild got a similar card but with his/her own little
refrigerator magnet. And some cashmoneybucks inside.
Oh, and handmade, color-coordinated envelopes. I'm so classy.

 

The ornament image is repeated inside (without the ho to the third)
along with our warm wishes for Christmas and always.

[Disclaimer: These cards are not my original ideas. I wish they were. Many thanks to the generous and talented card designers who freely share their inspiration all over the internets.]

Since I was already in card-producing mode, I agreed to help some friends with theirs yesterday, which is why the walk didn't happen. It's all good, though. I had a fine time, felt productive and useful and wasn't tempted to snack.

Which brings us back to the "eating" part of this blog. (The knitting part is happening this weekend. So nice to have all the hustle-bustle over with and have time to sit-and-knit for fun, without guilt.)

Y'all know how I love a breakfast of plain yogurt mixed with some kind of fruit preserve and topped with granola, right? Well, yesterday I opened the last jar of orange marmalade in the pantry, from way back in January. I've been putting off opening it, first because it's a tiny jar and second because it's the last and third because I have other jams and preserves in the pantry, so why waste the very last jar of marmalade. But I did open it. And even though it's on the thick side, it's delicious and sweet and yummy and did I say delicious? As I like to call it:

Sunshine in a Jar!

My philosophy about food has been evolving lately and my new mantra is this:

There will always be more. I can make more or I can buy more, but I don't have to eat it all now, because … there will always be more.

And as far as marmalade goes, today's the day for more! We bought 20 pounds of oranges to support the high-school band's fundraiser, and a friend is bringing mine to me today and we're making more, using the same recipe I used last year.

I promise not to let it cook so long this time. Orange marmalade is much better cold than nuked. Which is what I had to do to this batch to make it spreadable. And since I took all those pictures last year, I'm not going to embarrass myself by taking more today in front of someone else.

Wouldn't want to let my non-blogging friend know how crazy we bloggers are about decorating our blogs. Heh.