Thanks for the fish

but my house in summer makes it all ok.

Let’s start with hormonal. Despite my declaration that I wouldnt’ care about anything anymore or be upset by anything (or perhaps in spite of it), I’m weepier than ever. It’s ridiculous! I don’t even have pms. I want nothing more than to be a calm, cool, and collected chick. To just accept the ways of the universe and move on with life. But now that I’ve made that my goal, everything makes me cry! I wept the other night for a really stupid reason (embarassing!). Then I saw a duck crossing the highway with her chicks and nearly sobbed again. There’s roadkill everywhere. My cat might be sick (making a strange “meow”?) and I just can’t seem to handle it. Despite being for the most part happy and manic, I have these periodic moments of extreme sadness and dread. Nightmares too. And a bit of hypochondria. Probably just my usual craziness. : )

And now for stressed out. It’s stupid to be stressed out when I really don’t have much to do at work. But the things I do have to do are overwhelming me. My boss is essentially…mmm….what’s another word for useless? He basically whines that his staff members are not entertaining him enough. “I’m bored!” whaa!. You’re a manager dude. Manage something and shut the eff up. Trying to be compassionate and failing miserably.

And now for happiness. Picked up my first batch of CSA vegetables. Can you say FUN? Love it! We drove down the road to the farm - less than 1/2 mile - talked to friendly farmer Ben, measured out tons of produce that is already paid for, so felt like it was free (that was really fun). We got radishes, arugula, meslcun mix, lettuce, spinach, green onions, 2 mint leaves, 2 seed potatoes…. guess that’s it. : ) Happy girl! Love food!

I’m trying to get drunk off the remainder of 3 bottles of wine, but need to stay sober enough to some planting and watering. I bought some herbs - an oregano, some basil, and a rosemary. I also ordered 2 more raised bed kits. My original plan was to do a pretty herb garden, but then I got overwhelmed and cancelled that plan. My new plan is to do utilitarian herbs in a raised bed. Good enough for this year. That way I can grow tons of basil and freeze pints upon pints of pesto for the winter.

Book is going good. Still “worried” about a layoff so trying to get this thing written so I can start the long process of getting rejected by publishers. Fun!!

Well, gardening calls.

in Maine and spring in Maine:

Winter - have shitty day at work, come home, get drunk, go to bed.

Spring - have shitty day at work, have glass of wine, do million things that need to be done that you actually enjoy, go for walk, go to bed forgetting why day at work was so shitty.

It’s 6:39 pm. I’ve had a giant delicious salad, a few glasses of wine, and a filet of haddock for dinner. The sun will not go down for 1 more hour so I have 20 minutes to get the window screens out of the shed and bring them inside, water my raised bed, window boxes, and seedlings in the basement, get my tennies on and go for a half hour walk. Then, put the screens in, write the “working outline” for Act 1 of my novel, and do some writing. I should practice piano for my June recital but I already accept the fact that that will not happen.

Things are popping in the garden. I have daffodils everywhere. Weeds are coming up…lots of things are coming up! I’ve nixed my patio and the herb garden for this year (my two big projects). I want to finish edging all my beds with inlaid bricks. I want to rip out my whipped on rhodos and my dying holly. I want my front beds to start looking good. So  yet again, I abandon the patio and decide to go for the “maintenance” route one more year. I know eventually my garden will look fabulous and take care of itself. It’s just not quite there yet.. But damn it makes me happy anyway.

Work fucking blows and that’s all I’ll say about that.

17 minutes left to finish my glass of wine and do items listed above. Chug, chug, chug!

day off. Of course, I just checked my work email and that basically erased all the good that came of today!! sigh… no… I won’t let it upset me. I have decided that I don’t get paid nearly enough to get stressed out at work, so I won’t worry about it (or respond to any emails) until 8 am tomorrow morning.

The whole point of me taking a long weekend (plus Friday off this weekend..so another long weekend!) was to get some gardening done. As of 10 am this morning, I had done absolutely zero gardening. BUT… I’ve more than made up for it today (with J’s help). We got 2 and a half yards of bulk mulch from the local nursery…had to borrow J’s dad’s truck. Usually, we get the bags of mulch, but they were all out so that’s why we got bulk. It was way easier though. No ripping apart bags and lugging them everywhere and then having to throw them out. I got pretty much everything I wanted to mulched..let’s see… 6 beds in all, plus the raspberries and blueberries that I planted last week. Boy am I tired now though.

I’m celebrating my successes by drinking a drink I just invented. I think I’ll call it a Berry Fashionable Cocktail. Sort of a cross between a cosmo and an old fashioned. : ) Actually quite good!

My hands are caked in dirt… oh sorry, I drifted off into a mental scenario about work. tee hee. ARGH. Mental control here is key. I will not let work upset me. I will not let work upset me. I will enjoy the rest of my night, reading, and drinking, and writing, and playing the piano. hmm… what should I have for dinner?

day than a summer day today. It’s cold and dreary, overcast and intermittently rainy. We were out late last night “gallactic bowling” with some friends. It was sort of fun, but I drank too much beer, ate too much bowling alley food, and well, I can’t deny it… bowling kicked my ass. I started off strong with a spare, then as I got tireder and tireder (I know that’s not a word) I got worse and worse and got many many gutter balls. But oh well, better than sitting home on my birthday. : )

So we got home around 1 in the morning and you know I normally go to bed at 9, so yeah, that was way past my bedtime. Oh, and J took me out to a nice dinner too. I had hanger steak and garlic “smashed” potatoes and a cosmo. Anyway, so I slept till 11, got up, ate breakfast and then we tried to do some zen-ifying of the office. We had these magazines on a bookshelf in teh office, some that we’ve been toting around since 1998! So I went through them ruthlessly and tossed 99% of them. It’s silly the things you keep. Then, with all that extra space, we decided to go to borders. To help with my book research, I bought a bunch of books about pirates. : ) Call it synchronicity, but everywhere I went there was pirate stuff everywhere. Or else we can just assume that pirates are very popular and I’ve just never noticed it before. You decide. Then, I got to chatting with the cashier at borders and she assured me that there is buried treasure off the coast of Cliff Island in Casco Bay, left by Captain Kidd. Yes, you’re wondering where all this pirate stuff came from out of the blue. You’ll see when my novel comes out, which coincidentally I have to start actually writing tomorrow! Exciting.

So no garden tasks accomplished today because of the poopy weather. I have officially crossed off zero of 26 items on my list. But I have high hopes to get at least 2 done tomorrow, in between novel writing, and piano practicing. I’ve also vowed to keep the kitchen, living room and bedroom clean. J has been cleaning constnatly and I frankly can’t handle the guilt. He wont’ stop! Damn him! NOOO! Sigh… the things I have to put up wtih from that man. It’s almost too much for me.

I’ve dropped the Enya song from teh recital program. My teacher thought I shoudl concentrate on teh other one (ouch). But she gave me some good tips and a plan of attack, so I feel good about it.

What else? Made squash soup, bought some sexy peek toe black Tahari heels from TJ Maxx ($29!), watched Deja Vu (quite good actually), snuggled with the kitties, and let J have the last bit of wine that I didn’t drink on Thursday night. Decided again that I should quit drinking and instead of beating msyelf up about it, I’m just going to decide to keep deciding that I should stop drinking and maybe one day, I will actually do it! Habits are hard, man. But I quit smoking, so I rock. I also bought a book by the Dalai Lama called “how to see yourself as you really are.” So that will be my bedtime reading tonight. Well, it’s almsot 9, so I think I’ll go up and get ready for bed, bring up some magazines ,and  some books and just relax and try to heal from all that bowling!

Oh, and my mother in law bought me a $50 gift certificate to the local greenhouse! We haven’t gotten the veggies planted yet. In fact, haven’t even rototilled the poop in yet, but maybe manana. So I will probably buy the veggies with the certificate. Need to figure out what to plant first though. We will do much better this year!

but too much sun. Went on our 2nd kayaking voyage today… it was gorgeous, perfect day, like it often seems to be lately (!) so we decided to go out with the boats. Tried to find a new place in town to put in, but couldn’t find the right spots…drove around for an hour and then finally just put in at the same public landing that we did last time, right in the center of town, where all the boats (big boats) put in. I’d rather have somewhere more discreet, but it worked. Went down the cathance river, out to merrymeeting bay and ended up at little brick island, just a rock in the middle of the bay. So we stopped and stretched our legs. I laid on a rock in the sun (my most favorite thing in the world to do… actually it could be a lumber pile in the sun, a bag of mulch in the sun, a pile of dirt in the sun… you get my drift). It was awesome..gorgeous and peaceful and zenlike and flowing. Time went by and I didn’t notice. J was way ahead of me. he likes to see how fast he can go while I like to stop and smell the roses, or the sea kelp or whatever. SAw my eagle! I like to believe I have an eagle who follows me everywhere, but yes, I really know it’s not the same eagle, but god it was gorgeous. It was up there with an osprey and they were just flying around, spreading their wings, I guess looking for lunch. damn, man.

Got back, grumpy and tired, and did some weeding. Yelled at J, he stalked off and mowed the lawn. I laid down and he came in to say he was going up to shovel manure. I felt guilty and went up to help, tired as shit. We made up, shoveled shit together and then he threw up a few times and decided that he had overdone it. I’m not worse for wear except some sore shoulders, a sore back and a sunburned wrist. Now I’m having a much deserved cocktail and eating a frozen pizza.

Next up is piano practicing… getting a little worried about the recital. Tomorrow is more weeding and mulching and some novel writing! God I wish I had a summer vacation.

another perfect day. Blue skies, sun, nice temps. Went to lunch with an old coworker today and saw her baby, then came home and worked in the yard. Mulched some beds, trimmed back some perennials, then went out and bought some pansies for teh window boxes, and some lambs ear, some periwinkle… : ) Got the window boxes planted and a few more beds mulched, then freaked out because 2 of my beds are already totally overrun with clover… it’s only April! Ack! I can’t have lost control already. Oh well… I’m focusing on the beds that are not covered in clover and working from the most visible locations out and I’ll get it all done. It seem overwhelming already though.

Nature seems to have popped overnight. All kinds of things are coming up. My hollyhocks, the artemesia, the bleeding heart is already up and has flowers on it. The poplars have leafed out! They’re so pretty. Spring is really inspiring. I felt like bursting into verse all day today.

My parents are here. They got here last night, which means I got super drunk. I love them to death but I can only deal with them when I’m toasted. They’re coming back tonight and luckily I had enough vodka for one martini. Just enough to take the edge off.

I think it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. I guess we need it though that’s surprising because of all the snow that melted. For some reason things dry out quickly here. But luckily we usually get plenty of rain. Well, time for dinner. Herb encrusted haddock and green beans. yum!

a big blob. : ( I’ve really taken this cooking/eating thing to the extreme. Today I made maple walnut apple cobbler. Yum… and then fresh veggie sandwiches for dinner. Then we had cake and ice cream for J’s niece’s birthday. Then I had more cobbler. I think I’m currently entering sugar shock. I’m kind of mad at myself because I had just started to see some improvement on losing weight, and now look what I’m doing. Oh well… tomorrow is another day. I’ll go the gym!

More gardening today… got my 16 drumstick alliums planted, and my 5 pink charm daffodils. Guess that was it…. what did I do all day?? Watched the redskins lose, but they looked pretty good despite the loss. It’s sort of surreal to watch them and not be totally disappointed. Now I’m watching the anti-christ Dallas Cowboys vs. the other anti-christ Patriots… I’m a little torn, but I’m almost cheering for the Cowboys, which would literally be a first.

Ok, back to food. So, I was reading in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle about making cheese. Apparently it’s really not that hard to make. You just have to order the right cultures or whatever they’re called. You can make fresh mozzarella in 30 minutes! All you need is milk and the right bacteria. I’m so trying this!

Worked on my presentation a bit. I’m getting really nervous and need to practice it, but really don’t want to. So, I’ve been practicing piano a lot just as an excuse to not do that. Still working on Fantasia. J flipped out this afternoon and yelled “Don’t  you know any other songs!?!” Rude! Oh well.. my stomach is killing me. Time for some pepto and football.

First, of all… Mary, if you’re reading this… thank you for your kind comments about my blog. Unfortunately, you grossly overestimate my cleverness as I’ve tried about 6 times to post a comment on your blog and can’t figure out how.. So… urr… yeah. : )

Was laying in bed this morning, dreading planting the hundreds of bulbs that I ordered. Then I went to Home Depot and went a little nuts. I shouldn’t buy anything living from them because they do such a crappy job of taking care of their stuff.. but as much as I scream about quality over price, I guess I’m just kind of cheap. So I bought 20 bags of mulch (on the list), a bird bath… SO cute… concrete, looks like a little kid made it… only $16! (not on the list), 2 roses - half price (not on the list), 2 purple asters, so pretty! (nope), pansies (on the list!), dracena spikes (not), 3 big tall gorgeous junipers (nope). : ) $200 later and I’m pooped. I got my window boxes planted with the pansies and dracena spikes, and I got 30 crocuses planted. 55 daffodils and an unknown number of alliums left… plus all the shit I bought today. I was only out there for 2 hours and I kept waiting for the sun to go down…. I just can’t take this manual labor anymore! Too overwhelming. Guess I”ll get back out there tomorrow, but for now a nice glass of chardonnay and crab cakes (which unfortunatley I have to make from scratch await).

J’s been cleaning the house all day, which I think is silly since our housekeeper is coming on Tuesday. But he’s in an anal mood,so I’ll let him go with it.

Football… My friend J, who I never talk to anymore called me last week to yell at me about the state of my fantasy football team. I forgot to set my lineup. : ) For some very odd reason, I’m just not into football this year. The Redskins are even doing ok, but now I’m afraid I’ll jinx them if I start watching.. so I have no idea what’s going on. And my league kind of sucks.. nobody smack talks.. nobody trades… their kind of lame. It’s about half girls and half guys and the only cool ones are the girls. But.. this week i’m playing my friend H’s husband and he’s cool. He’s an ex-marine and me and H and J used to play poker with him and we’d all be talking about football and he’d say how we were more manly than his friends. And then we’d drink him under the table. But he was fun, and he’s smack talking me hard. Said somethign about kicking my liberal ass. What’s life without smack talk?

Anyway, tonight I’m going to work on my presentation. I’m sort of excited! (must be drunk). It only has to be 10 minutes, so that’s not bad. Oh! I was pretty adventurous last night at the japanese restaurant. Got maki rolls with veggie tempura and soft shell crab tempura. And tried the mystery appetizers that they brought us for free. For me, that’s pretty good. And I got a hot sake. Yum! Poor J, his brain is fried. He’s working too much. He called his chopsticks pork chops. : ) He’s losing his mind. Ok, time to slave away over a hot stove.

go to work tomorrow. This weekend has been awesome. The weather is perfect and I feel like I’m vacation. Just at home. I’ve been productive, gotten lots of sleep (Yeah, 6 am is going to be harsh and unforgiving tomorrow)… sigh… is summer really over? I’m even packing away my summer clothes. Half of which never fit me anyway.

My poor dad.. the whole time he was here he was complaining that he wasn’t feeling well, then went to the ER, etc. etc. I still thought he was just..you know… old. Turns out he has an advanced form of Lyme disease. Sorry dad! I wonder if they have T-shirts that say “Just because I’m a hypochondriac doesn’t mean I’m not sick”. Ha! Wait, let me check..  No.. darn. Maybe he wouldn’t appreciate that anyway. : ) lol… I kill me. No, but really, I feel bad for him. 3 weeks of antibiotics. ugh. 

I got this cool mindmapping software called mindapp. J has looked into all of them and he says this is the best one. It’s only $30 and I just downloaded the free trial for now. i’m mapping out what my book is going to be about. I thought it would help brainstorm, but I have a hard time committing silly ideas to type. I think it’s better for me to scribble on paper and then just throw it away. But it has been useful in getting all the thigns I’ve decided on on paper. Like my characters and their motivations, possible settings. And it made me realize that I have a lot more planned than I had thought. Still need a pesky plot though. grrr… They’re a dime a dozen right? Someone throw me a bone.

I finished Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist in a single sitting last night. What a lovely book. It was the perfect example in a story form of all the stuff I’ve been reading about and yammering about. Loved it! Very inspiring. The premise is bascially to follow your dreams, listen to your heart, listen to the omens, and you’ll reach your destiny. All the people you meet are helping you and all your hardships are helping you along… blah blah blah. Good stuff! I’d like to sort of carry that theme into my book, but more veiled and vague. It’s always more fun that way.

I dyed my hair brown again. I can’t decide whether to do lighter highlights. I kind of like it as is. It’s a little Elvira, but what the hell. If I’m going to be a Wiccan, it would only be fitting. Btw, did you see the story about the Wicca teacher who just won the powerball? How’s that for synchronicity? Omen? hmm…

Worked in the garden all day yesterday, finally getting the weeds (ok, a fraction of the weeds) up. Looks good. Yawn… nap time? I got up at 10 this morning (and yesterday morning and the morning before that). I’m just so not cut out for the 8 to 5 life. I gotta finish planning my california vacation… only 3 weeks! I need to go for a jog..kind of hot though.  

 

 

 

It’s just too darn hot! And muggy. : I~ It feels like we’re already at the tail end of summer…almost August. Every year it gets to this time and the gardens just get out of control. My only goal this year was to keep up with the weeds, but it’s just not happening. Besides, there are other things I’d rather be doing. But I did do a little bit of weeding today and I ordered some metal plant labels so I’ve been working on getting those in (rather than wait till everything dies back and I forget where/what everything is). Deadheaded my roses today. My climbing rose bolted up trying to get out of the shade of the now gigantic butterfly bush. I should move it but I think I’m already at the mental stage where I’m preparing for fall… putting compost down, mulching, cutting stuff back, covering stuff up (not doing all that stuff.. just thinking about it). This year I’ll do it right!

Lots of tomatoes on the vines in the veggie garden, but none ready… not even the early girls, which seems odd. Lots of eggplants, some cucumbers, some squash. Just put in some bean and lettuce seeds. Hopefully the beans will make it in time (been meaning to do it for a month or two…finally got around to it).

Painted the porch door today. Tomorrow I need to get paint for the trim and do that. Oh, guess I should’ve left all the supplies out. doh.

Finished Harry Potter on Wednesday and Labyrinth today. Loved HP. Been dreaming about it every since. Liked Labyrinth a lot. Next, I’m on to The Power of Coincidence.

Looked at some kayaks at Dick’s today. Signed us up for another class at Beans. It’s not cheap, but I finally found a hobby we’re both excited about, so can’t let the momentum fade. Every time we go by any water (which is pretty often) we look at each other and say “we could go kayaking there!” Expensive hobby, but what the hell. I’m in the prime of my life. Might as well enjoy it while I can!

Bought my Willie Nelson tickets today. Ok… question… you’ve heard of “road rage”..what’s the word for when you go to websites that suck and you can’t do what you’re trying to do? Discuss amongst yourselves… well whatever it’s called, I had it this morning. Every site I went to sucked. Ticketmaster, beans, comcast. For god’s sake people, hire someone who knows what they’re doing. grrr… temper temper.. i know.  

Went to a lobster bake in Bremen yesterday. Don’t like lobster. : ( 

Well, there’s the update. Shit! It can’t really be Monday already tomorrow, can it?