Progress, Portions and Prosperity

The last few weeks have been challenging. Finding the combination of energy to apply to work, school and home life has been interesting. Work I've come to realize is something that needs a light mind, one where you are able to disconnect your blood pressure and heart and only your muscles are pulling the load. School is in the final push - only the capstone presentation this coming Monday and then a written document on the 3rd to finish. The modules are all done and complete. The team project is by far the hardest element as we have to really on others to get the professional certification grade. Home - well is a challenge to find the balance.

I continue to struggle with this self hatred issue. I know hatred seems strong but when you've been programmed to be something you can never achieve the weight of not being all that is expected turns to this morphist existence. I am doing ok and slowly seeing the light.

My garden is suffering and will the next week as we will be gone and not here to nurish it. The bright side is my worms are flourishing and I have provided them enough food from the crisper drawer tonight to keep them until our return.

Tomorrow we start our vacation - a visit to a national park and some time with my siblings. It will be a week of love and I hope my husband can keep up with the family.

Gorilla Gardening

The routine has become that the house cleaning is done on Saturdays and on Sunday's a I attend the holy house of dirt worms and the almighty flower. My husband allowed me to go to the local gigantic home improvement store alone and in his truck. A combination that should be avoided at all costs.

When I returned home, he looked in the bed of the truck and shook his head saying "you just had to go an over-do-it". I explained that he was at a fault for setting up the this paradigm that gave me the freedom to select large flats of annuals at one time.

The flower bed outside our bedroom door was a bit of "hodge-podge", so I decided to redo it in a style similar to the adjoining flower bed. A handful of Gerber daisy, some double inpatients and miniature cup flowers created this easy wild flower look that mimic the other bed.

Now the front of the house received two full flats of marigolds and flame flowers. My idea is to start to integrate the fall colors in so that come October all I'll need to do is drop in some gold and red mums where the current petunias are slowly fading out at to tie it all together. Throw some pumpkins on the steps and a wreath on the door and I'll be ready for those houndling trick or treaters.

I was excited to see lady bugs in the garden yesterday, this means I am attracting the right kind of bugs to the yard. The worms seem happy in their compost bin and they are enjoying the constant supply of fruit and vegetable scraps from the kitchen.

Parking Garge Angst

For the last year my parking place has a stalker. I am a bit of creature of habit and I do appreciate a car with out dings or scratches. I park in the lowest part of the parking garage and had for the longest time the same spot.

I did ate least until the Red Honda with Texas plates showed up. He would get here before me and take my spot. This irked me. Some days we would arrive at the same time and I would take the spot. This dance went on for months. Then the wacko kiddos as the online video company next door started skateboarding in the parking garage. I then moved my spot further out. End spot third row from the wall. Our dear property management went and re-striped my spot out from under me. Another sad day. So I moved to the far back wall where NO ONE EVER PARKED.

Then I moved further away and now I get here a little later than before and MR. Red Honda took that spot too. Flipped me out.

So today I went to lunch with a couple co-workers. One of who also is a "away from everyone" else parker and has seen this saga going on with me and Mr Red Honda. We walk to his car and I notice that Mr. Red Honda has gone to lunch. I instantly moved my car into his spot.

If that Aholeyol keys my car, we are going to throw down.

I did nothing to him, other than want to park far away from him AND EVERYONE else. I did not single him out as he did my friggin parking spot.

Loco Moco Choca Laca

I am finally downloading the pictures from all my trips this year. My poor camera had 200+ photos on the disk. It's taken forever to get everything in the same place after moving.

It seems strange to see the pictures and think this was just from this year, and only so far this year. There are still a few more trips to do. We are planning two vacations between now and the end of year - one to Yellowstone and one to Vancouver. Both will be full of fun and finally some relaxation.

Tonight at dinner we talked about how people do not travel. That some guys that work with my husband have never left the area and they are in their 20 and 30s. To me this is just weird. How can you live in one place all your life and never want to see the rest of the world. There is so much to see, smell, taste and experience. This just boggles my mind that they have no desire for anything different.

For me the world has so much I haven't seen yet that if I am home too long I get out of sorts.

If I can figure out how to post the pictures here on the blog I will - Puerto Rico, Brazil, Seattle, Oregon, and of course the new house.

Worms Scraps Food and the mighty dollar

I am a bit of wanna be gardener. I mean, I spend time playing in the dirt trying to make things grow. Flowers are my preference, but I enjoy consumption item too. Our new house has allowed me to expand from being a "container" gardener to a more of "landscape" gardener. The catalogs of all the odd and unusual plants; will in fact, be my down fall.

I spent 20 minutes this morning watering before I left for work - that was only for what is around the patio. The upkeep will be time consuming. But the payoff of seeing things bloom is priceless.

With all that I want to become in regards to my Armadillo tendencies of burrowing into the zone of dirt and potting soil, I was researching where in our area that we can drop off old paint and found out that our city subsidizes a program to residents to buy compost bins at a very nice discount. I went with the deluxe model. It will arrive in the next two weeks. I hate to pay for compost when I know we throw away the ideal mix of odds and ends that could be decomposed down into some sort of glorious soil elixir.

I strive for glorious blooms at every niche and cranny.

I wait in anticipation for the yellow lilac tree to arrive from the mail order catalog.

A Stanley Thermos full of hot new england dinner

My life is taking all these twists and turns lately. From happily exploring the world through glasses fogged by jet lag in business class business trips to birthing a new house for us to live in.

The craziness continues as I read through other blogs - blogs with a certain culinary flair and wonder if I can tap into my inner betty crocker to to add in my own flair of recipe undertaking.

My lunch today was prepared by my husband. He made New England boiled dinner last night. To me it is kielbasa soup. To him it is comfort. A throw back from being at home. It was combined with corn bread sticks - back in the the little corn molds even. It has fresh corn stripped from a cob left over and new potatos. It's hearty and fills the soul with far off winter feelings and chills.