Bounding out of the ground

Compared to last years hen-pecked desert, this spring I’m growing a jungle.

Between the rain and the warm weather things are just bounding out of the ground. Collecting and saving seeds for the last couple of years is paying off well. I’m trying to fill the blank spots with perennials, but that takes time. Annuals provide foliage and flowers right now. I will have to put some effort into clearing them out at the end of the season, but I should get plenty of seeds for next year. I can’t wait for the larkspur to get going. With the size the plants are now, I should have a lot of color.

I have an idea

We have sooo much stuff. A room full of stuff we don’t use. I’m going to start getting rid of stuff. One thing per day. I think I can do that. Even if I have to throw it away. Take a picture so I have a record. Post it here. I could pick rooms, or have a theme for a week or a month. One thing a day for year. I like it. Nothing overwhelming. No major life changing events. Just a slow chipping away at some of the crap that’s filling up my life and our house. I can do that. One rule. It has to be my stuff.

It’s the little things

So the Wonderful Spouse got caught up in my attempts to straighten the house for Mom’s visit and when he came home for lunch further straightened and put stuff away. One thing he did brought tears to my eyes.

My Mom saves her newspaper for us to line the nest boxes in the chicken coop. We had a couple of broken eggs a while back and decided that switching to artificial grass in hopes that we would lose fewer eggs to breakage. We don’t have to replace it, just rinse it off, let it dry and put it back. I haven’t been able to tell my Mom that I don’t need the newspaper anymore because she’s been interested in the project from the beginning and seems to like donating to the cause.

When the Spouse came home from work, in addition to everything else, he lined the coop with newspaper and left the eggs for Mom to see. He knew that I wanted to show Mom the girls at their best and to show her that her support is appreciated. It’s the little things that mean the most in the long run.

The adventure begins

So this happened this week:

That is a box of peeps. Peeping away as I drive them home from the post office.

I now officially own chickens. I’ve been excited about it for a while, and I still am. What I wasn’t expecting was the associated level of anxiety. I’ve been worried about everything. Now I always worry about everything, so it’s really nothing new, but the quantity of things I was anxious about is just stupid. I had dreams about the quantity we got. In one it was eight, in another it was three. In one they were all dead.

The first night, when we set up the box and put the heating mat under it, set to the appropriate temperature, I kept having visions of cooked chicks. I wanted to get up and look, but didn’t want to wake my husband.

Now that we’ve had them for a few days most of the anxiety has dissipated. Looking forward to getting the coop assembled and them being big enough to go outside.

Parsimonious

Since I am now out of work I’ve been trying to cut spending. First I decided that I would turn in our aluminum cans in. Then I thought, better yet, stop drinking soda. Soda serves no purpose at all. It doesn’t nourish us. It’s often actively bad for us. It uses a lot of environmental resources to no good purpose at all. The best thing it does is taste good. On that point I haven’t been able to give it up entirely. I’ved cut back some. Sometimes. It’s a work in progress. Maybe I could try having one every other day, then every third day? I’m starting to think they put something in it to make it addictive. In my case it’s probably the caffeine.

Saving is good, but not always easy. Car repairs and dental bills and other unavoidable expenses. Then this Sunday our washing machine broke. It’s broken before, but the Wonderful Spouse was able to get it going again. This time it was just no go. We talked about getting new ones, but the thought of spending the money to get them just made me cringe. Maybe we could get it fixed?

So I went to the manufacturer’s web site. Entered the model and serial numbers and the problem we were having and scheduled a service call. The guy showed up on time and in less than hour it was fixed. At a cost I could deal with.

I’m starting to understand how people can get compulsive about saving money. It’s very satisfying. Especially if you have something you’re saving for, in this case, “The Farm.”

It would have been a whole other storey had it been the refrigerator. I would have had a new one delivered by now. Ours leaks onto the floor from someplace and the door below the icemaker is rusting through from the inside.

Saw this

Saw this the other day as well. I looked it up and it’s one of those ultra-high mileage cars they they design, develop, get a few made and then go out of business.

The Farm

I mentioned it to the Wonderful Spouse a few weeks ago and to my great surprise he said OK.

We both have our reasons; some of them we share.

I think that the human population has reached a size that’s getting very difficult to support. I think there’s a big bad coming. I don’t know when and I don’t know what, but it’s coming. Any kind of disaster could interrupt food, water and energy supplies. Being in a large population center could mean starvation or worse.

The whole tea party thing scares me, too. They want to deny gays rights. They want to burn books. They’re just a few steps away from witch burning. As an atheist, I think I probably fall under their definition of witch.

I’d like to be able to produce my own food. If you really want to know what’s in your food, grow it yourself. I do what I can now, which is mostly tomatoes and herbs. I’d like to do something more substantive.

Living in densely populated Orange County has kind of burned me out. I’d like to live someplace where quiet happens sometimes. It’s never quiet where I live. I can always hear cars on the highway and freeway. I can usually hear the neighbors screaming or crying or laughing. I can smell the garbage trucks going by. I’d like to live someplace where there’s room for something besides more people.

I still can’t believe the Spouse is OK with the idea, but he’s said so more than once. Now comes research and planning. Although I know no one’s experience will be exactly the same I’m reading. Hit by a Farm is the first on the list.

Too. Much. Stuff.

I’ve been trying to simplify our house and my lifestyle. I’m using every tool I can find to help me do it. Flylady is one of them. They encourage you to make your changes one small step at a time. Instead of trying to make giant, crashing (and usually crushing) changes in your life, start with one small thing and try to make a habit of it.

One thing I read on the site was “Do you hate putting your clothes away after doing the laundry? Is it because your drawers and closet are so full nothing else will fit?” That rang like a bell inside my head. I do and they are. I cleaned out a couple of my drawers for my 10 minute tasks. My clothes are scrunched. I can see what I have and I have room to put stuff away.

Genius. Ours has been a consumer society for way too long. The heck with that. It’s wasteful on every scale, from global to single household. I think I need to redefine ‘need.’ I can tell you one thing for sure. I do not need any more shorts or t-shirts. The old ones are getting made into rugs and the seldom worn are going to charity.

I don’t do everything the Flyladiessay and the religious content, although it’s certainly non-denominational, leaves me cold, but I do try to take hold of that one small change and keep working at it until it’s a habit. Things aren’t perfect, and never will be. But I’m a couple of small changes better than I was a couple of months ago. And it’s amazing how much better that makes me feel.

Don’t beat yourself up about what you woulda, shoulda, coulda done and spend 10 minutes cleaning off your desk/kitchen table/nightstand.

And once you get used the idea that you can change things by starting small you start to see all the other places that this principle will apply. Finances? Do I really need a soda every day with lunch? No. If I bring lunch to work even a couple of times a week I can save $10 to $15.

There have got to be other places I can apply this. I think I’ll go find out.

I’m lucky?

I’m lucky.
I’m almost 53 years old and this is the first really important death in my life.

Really. I know I’m lucky.
But nothing prepares you for this. I’ve seen it on the horizon for quite a while now.

But, like watching a train wreck in slow motion, even though you know what’s coming, it just doesn’t prepare you for the awfulness of the situation.

You know it’s coming. You know it’s going to hurt. Sometimes you can see which limb will be torn from limb.

Doesn’t help. Hurts more. You feel like if you knew what was coming, you should have been able to stop it.

You can’t. Life is life. It’s a cycle. It is the way it is. Until our sun burns out, we are part of this planet. That comforts me. It’s not eternal, but it’s a really long time.

And while I’m grateful that life is good here on our wonderful planet, there’s still a Dad-sized hole in my world, impossible to fill.

Amazon is wonderful

So.

My computer died. 

Now, do I get the software I bought over the past 15 months back?  Or do I have to buy it again.  I really really don’t have the money to buy CS4 again.  Or another version of MS Office.  I bought Office because I need it for work.  My employer really doesn’t have the money to buy me Office, but I really need one to be able to even open work files at home.

Chit.  Not at all sure how this is going to play out. 

Amazon. I really love buying stuff from Amazon.  I can look back in my purchase history and see what I bought and when I bought it.  Is it still under warranty or not?  I can see that.  I’ll buy more stuff from Amazon just because I’m pretty sure they’ll support what I’ve got.

Amazon resonds. Sony, oh, hell, you don’t want to have to call Sony. Good luck to you if you need to call them. You’ll get a computer generated voice from an English as a second language speaker. Good luck getting help from that. It’s a flippin’ cliche and there’s a damn good reason for that.

With Amazon, I get what I’ve bought. If I buy a book. It’s mine. No matter when or what the platform.

I’ve had issues with a point and shoot camera that I bought several years ago. Amazon had my purchase history and I could see that the camera company needed to work with me.

With Amazon, I know what I’ve bought and when I bought it. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken with an Amazon customer service person. And yet, I’m still happy with Amazon customer service. Kind of think that Sony. could benefit from lessons from Amazon. I no longer trust Sony