Doodling

I doodle at work when I'm bored sometimes. Yesterday I was pretty bored.

Busy as a bee!

The weekend came and went all too quickly. Of course that happens when having fun. Saturday was spent being lazy the first part but S and I ended up in Chesterton to support some friends at the relay of life where we spent quite a bit of cash on booths and the silent auction. I won a bucket with bird feeders and things and S won some show tickets which she gave to her brother as a birthday gift on Sunday. Here is my basket: 

So that was fun. 

Sunday morning I got up and made fresh bread which everyone liked. 

It's great with butter and homemade jam. :)

That afternoon, we went to the nursing home to celebrate someone's birthday which was enjoyable. I love how these people actually celebrate each other! It's really nice. 

Monday came too quickly and I had to meet with Ex. Seeing him made me ill. Literally. I felt so tainted and slimy after. How did I ever like him let alone love him? I would even call him evil... I could just feel the hate and anger at the world rolling off of him in putrid vibes. He was so rude to the clerk dealing with us as she would not bend to his will and break the rules for him. He hasn't changed. I hope to never have to see him again.

Tuesday was blazing hot and humid, as we are in a bad heat wave. Still, I'm not complaining. It's still better then freezing in winter. The peach tree was suffering and had to be watered. The mystery of who was pushing S's pretty planter over often was solved and the planter was moved. One of the neighborhood dogs was to blame, a poodle.

Sorry about that...

I'm having troubles with Blogger, and I don't know if it is because I post using my phone sometimes or what, but if you read my last post (or tried to) you may be wondering why I can't seem to break my thoughts up into paragraphs. Well, I can, but blogger so helpfully decided it didn't like paragraphs and no matter what I do in edit, I cannot fix that post!

What's a girl supposed to do about that??

Anyway...moving on....

The temperature and the humidity finally moderated a little bit and everyone is breathing a little better outside today. It would of been very nice to be able to stay outside and work in the yard today. Maybe even finish up the fire pit. I ate my breakfast outside of yogurt and a biscuit just watching the world, and watching a mole hill move suspiciously. I did not let D know it was twitching, as he would of likely tried to kill the little creature. Most do not have the respect of living things like I do. In my opinion, it isn't posing any kind of danger to me or mine, and thus I can happily co-exist with it and instead just watched fascinated as I'd never actually seen one in action though it's trails are all over the yard.

Someday I will have my own little farmette, and it will be friendly to creatures great and small. Many I know think I'm positively bonkers for enjoying things like moths, bees, mice, moles, bears, etc.etc.etc. But they all do have a place on this earth, and I would find this world burdensome and boring without other creatures to share it with. To me, they are fascinating and deserve to enjoy the circle of life like the rest of us. Perhaps more deserving then us humans, who seem hell-bent on destroying the gifts of this world.That's not to say I oppose things like hunting and fishing and farming, what I oppose is being disrespectful and wasteful of the resources. I oppose killing indescriminently, killing for sport or fashion, or killing just because someone is scared of what they don't understand when simple commonsense precautions can be taken. For instance city coyotes that people fear. Coyotes don't attack people. Coyotes won't bother you if you keep a close eye on little fufu, coyotes won't bother you if you keep your chickens contained, and they won't bother you if you bother to put your lids on your garbage cans. But nope. People would rather go on killing sprees to slaughter them en mass. Pretty pathetic and lazy if you ask me. I don't oppose farming, but I oppose using masses of chemicals to do it, that get into air, water, and kill plants and animals, including the helpful ones. I oppose farms so large, that tons of fossil fuels must be used to till, plant, and harvest. It isn't healthy of sustainable. But, apparently, I'm just a peacenik dreamer.

It's HUMID

I'm not especially complaining about the humidity, as I would much rather it be warm and humid then cold and bitter outside. But when you take some moth infested bricks of hard dried out brown sugar that was from the back of the pantry to the compost and it INSTANTLY turns nice and fluffy when it hits the air, you KNOW it's humid. I know brown sugar really doesn't go bad....but there were bugs in it. Lots of them. Moths and thier worms. I may have had to just deal with skimming the squirmies out of food in the past, ugh, or go hungry, but I no longer have to do that and I hope to never ever have to do that again. So into the compost it went to feed the microbs. We had some rain yesterday, but not enough. I was hoping for more today but any storms passed us by. I'll have to hand water a few things tomorrow morning. I really do hope to get a weather station for the yard soon, maybe next month so I can start keeping records here. One of the little goldfish was belly up this morning :(. I have no idea why he died. He seemed healthy the day before, swimming around, looking as active as the other one. Although I can't recall seeing him eat. I know all the others I remember seeing eat the food. Well, he was fished out and buried in one of the houseplants, at least he will be fertilizer and the circle of life goes on, though I do feel bad about it dying in my care. I don't know what I could of done diffrently to prevent that and the other fish look fine. I picked up another magazine to read, Hobby Farms July/August issue. Its a very informative rag, though a lot of the articles don't really cover what I can do here in this yard, they are still very interesting and its neat to see diffrent methods of farming. There was an article on tomato grafting, interesting, but nothing I will ever do. I get enough tomatoes just off normal ones that I don't really need to worry about the hassle of going through all that even though I know its somewhat of a fad right now. I found the tree pastures article very interesting and someday if I should ever have pasture, I think I would do similar. The article on wild native bees was especially good, and I am a real fan of bees and can use some of the ideas for sure.

A Weekend at Home

I didn't make too many plans for the weekend hoping to get a few things done that I wanted to get done. Of course somehow any time I have off from work, whether or not I have busy plans ends up full and exhausting anyway. So here is how it went:

I could no longer take the no critter to tend to life and I knew D & S would have no issues with a few little fishes. And so now I have Sugar & Spice the tiny comet goldfish and Mr. and Mrs. Finley the bettas. I got them all on Friday and they are doing great. It's only a 3 gallon tank so I know Sugar and Spice when they get to be an inch or so long will need their own accommodations since goldfish really need about 2 gallons per inch of goldfish and a much better filter as they are messy fish and in the winter the bettas will need a submersible heater while the goldfish do not. I already have some used aquariums waiting in the wings, and maybe I can figure out some aquaponics set up for the little goldfish eventually for some experimenting. 

Saturday ended up being busier then expected. Because Ex was playing games and being a jerk, I never got some of my mail during my transition between my escape from him and my new life here. And I seriously want to smack the postal service for telling Ex my new address so he could lob threats at me.

Anyway, I did not get a notice that my license plate was expiring and that I needed a smog check. Well he told me, in an attempt to lure me to him alone that I had important BMV mail. He would not forward it or give it to my neighbor who could get it to me. So I never got it as I refused to get it from him. But it clued me in, and I went to the BMV and figured it out myself and just in the nick of time too, the plates expired today.

So after running around from the BMV to the smog check, I spent more of my time then planned but was relieved to get it over with.

I went home to grab my market bag and S to go to the farmer's market in Chesterton. I'd never been so was excited to check it out.

S was not feeling up to it so I loaded directions into my phone (how did I live without this thing before?!!!) and hit the road. It seemed to take forever to get there with all the road construction on 94 but I made it.

I must say when I think of a farmers market I expect farmers. Lots of farmers with lots of fruits, veggies, honey, mushrooms and meats. Out of 50 or so booths, only about 3 had fruits and veggies (and not all were local produce like the tropical fruits, obviously) a couple honey booths, a mushroom seller, and the rest were crafts or junk sellers and mobile eateries. I wasn't the only one displeased.. I over heard others complaining about it in the crowd. And the few real veggie sellers were swamped with business and the lines took forever to pay for the produce. I did end up bringing home a big organic brandy wine tomato, an organic head of lettuce, a couple organic cucumbers, some honey roasted cashew butter, some yummy plums an a seascape strawberry plant (which was a $1).

I finally got home and was going to start some baking but S was up then and needed to run some errands. So we ran around to do that and at lunch out at Culver's. It was tasty, but not healthy. We went to visit her mom next who had been transferred to a close by nursing home and we spent way too much time there, hours. By this time I was worn out. We went home and I took a nap before D got home then we all got ready to go out to eat.

By the time we were home again I really was tired. I starred at the baking ingredients I had set out to bake with and decided to do it in the morning instead. 

I felt icky Sunday morning but I had promised myself I would get certain things done so I forced myself up. I grabbed a new book of mine, shown here, and turned to the first recipe. Chocolate chip cookies!! What a good cookie to try out the new oven with:)

As you can see, they baked perfectly. I was almost tempted to add some chocolate mint leaves to the batter to see if that would give it a minty flavor to them.

I did leave the pecans out as the members of the house informed me they do not like pecans. I love them but since the majority don't, I left them out. About a dozen of these were later taken over to the nursing home to give to momma S.

But before we went to visit again, I finally got the peach tree planted in the 95% humidity and heat.

And I painted the #10 cans. Sweet pea pink. It matches the room in the attack! 

My poor house plants finally got transplanted into their mostly recycled new homes (the paint of course was not recycled). I still need one more for the aloe vera and an even larger pot for my fish hook barrel cactus that's outside right now for the summer. I'm still using boxes as furniture... I'll have to find some shelves soon.  But first I want a desk.

I did set the little tray of emerging sprouts outside in a sheltered spot as the bok choi was already reaching for more light.

I read and rested the rest of the hot and humid afternoon and for super we all just ordered pizza and relaxed and watched TV and stuff.

This morning, not in a mood much to even go outside as it was pouring rain ( a good soaker rain to water things well) so I just stayed in my room and organized and decorated a bit more. I hate bare walls, and decided to decorate one wall with my postcard collection. I love postcards and even found a couple that really touched me with good memories, sent to me by my grandmother years ago while still in college. They are treasures now that she is gone and they are the only two I did not put up as I want to protect them. I think I may start a new blog just to showcase my postcards for fun.

Something to nurture...

Part of the reason why I was bummed out is that I really have nothing to nurture right now. I have always nurtured everything. Strays, hurt wildlife, bugs, snakes, cats, dogs, birds, rats, mice, plants....You name it, I've nurtured it. When I escaped, I had to leave my cats and dog behind. When I could go back later, I got them, and gave the cats to my neighbor, and took the dog hoping he would get along with the landlords. He was a one person type dog no matter how much I tried to train him to accept other people. He ended up biting S unprovoked and acted as nothing was wrong...and as painful as it was, I had to put him down. I don't believe in keeping dogs who bite unprovoked....and before it had never been an issue. :( I hated myself for that but it was a catch 22...leave him with EX, who couldn't afford to feed or care for him, who wouldn't of walked or taken him to the vet and who was unstable and mean or risk it and hope he would adjust. In a way I suppose it was better he didn't  have to suffer the life Ex would of given him...But it still broke my heart into pieces and left me with nothing to nurture. I have never had a time in my life when I was petless.....and though D has discussed rabbits, chickens, bees, and vermicomposting sometime in the future, that is just a maybe. I needed something to wake up everyday for, something to take care of that makes getting up everyday worthwhile. A reason to get up as something depends on me do so.

So I made a completely frivolous purchase, that was rather on the fly, and brought home a small 3 gallon aquarium and Mr. And Mrs. Finly. I would love a big aquarium but I have no faucet upstairs where my living quarters are and lugging 20 gallons of water up those narrow stairs would be a bit much for me....likely would of taken days! Although maybe, later, I will feel up to a larger one.

Pretty pointless creature for an urban homestead I know...But then again, I can use the fishy water for watering houseplants and seedlings so in a way, its almost like aquaculture. Hahaha :) I may get a little goldfish too, something a bit more lively to watch swim around but I didn't like any of the ones I saw at Walmart, they looked icky to me. I know a goldfish would grow pretty fast, and would need a larger place before too long but I'd have time to get one set up and lugging water and get a good system going before that would be necessary.

And I found a few more 20 cent seed packets at walmart of things I did not have yet. The top two are perennials so should come back year after year after I plant them. The daisies I think would be great for that hotter dryer spot by the mailbox that I couldn't keep pansies alive there. And the Portulaca would be good in the hanging baskets next year. I'm sure they would need less watering then the petunias, which are a pain to keep looking good and watered enough.

And here, some of my seeds are starting to come up. In these three spots are some Bok Choi cabbage, They are the first to sprout for me. I'm guessing they are going to need more light then the window in my room, even if I get good light up there. I may set the tray in the shade out back. I wish that the tray sectioned out like most you buy do instead of being one solid block but hey, it was a free kit so I'm not complaining.

Not pictured here, but I also bought a chocolate mint plant from walmart. I'm not really a fan of bonnie plants, they are not organic, but I'll likely not find any organic grown plants from the shops and you can't really get chocolate mint from seeds. I haven't added what I've bought today to the garden total yet but will have to when I look at the receipt from today when I get home again. Not sure if I should add in the cost of the aquarium or not...its not really a "garden" item, though I plan to use the water on plants. I'll have to think about that. I've never kept track of the actual cost in $$ of my gardening before so I thought it would be neat to see how much I actually spend year to year and since I'm starting fresh, it was a good time to start keeping track.

I know why I've not been my normal cheerful self...

These last few days, I realized why I was not feeling myself. The holiday. Its reminding me that I have no family around, and the one I committed myself to for a long ten years didn't give a hoot about holidays. So I feel regret. Regret that I missed out on all the family holidays with my grandparents before they passed away. They were huge holiday celebrators. My whole family was and I was too until I moved away with Ex and though I wanted to celebrate, it was one sided and my celebrations were lonely. Regrets that I wasted what should of been the best years of my life.

And that was what was bumming me out big time.

But, I can't sit and sulk, I must take things one step at a time sometimes.

And once I realized what was bumming me out, I could deal with it.

So on the 4th, I worked in the morning, came home for a bit in the afternoon and worked in the yard cutting brush and tree branches which made my arms so weak and shaky for an hour after that I could not eat lunch or even drink water. I wonder if that is a strange Lupus thing? I've never had that happen before and it was pretty scary how bad my arms were shaking! I gave up trying to hold anything and just took a nap until work called me back. Last year I could of worked all day like that, not just 30 minutes and never even feel it. :( It made me feel weak and horrible. I can not give up gardening. Its bad enough I have had to give up hiking and backpacking this year as well! I refuse to give up my garden. Dammit. If I have to do things with tillers and in raised beds instead of how I prefer to do everything by hand, then I will have to. But I am not giving it up.

Having Hope

I forgot where I saw this quote or who I can contribute it to, but it stuck out in my mind today while I was feeling down...

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow," or something like that.

And so, while I was feeling all sorry for myself this morning, I got up, opened a seed starting tray, and grabbed some random seeds from my stash and got planting. It doesn't matter that it's the wrong time of year to do it, I needed to do it. Planting seeds is believeing there is hope ahead, and I just needed to feel a little bit of that today.

Doubts

Sometimes I have doubts about what I'm doing and where I am. I know leaving my ex was the right thing to do. No doubts about that! But where I am now, that is what I'm feeling doubtful about. For the most part I've been happy. Happier and better off then I've been in years but I keep getting this feeling that the bottom is going to fall out any minute.

The truth is, even though D & S say I have a home here, they could at any time revoke that and send me packing. The truth is, even though they call me family, I am not. The truth is, I will not be staying here forever. I have no true roots. They may make believe and talk and make plans that I will be but honestly, if I were to get sick, lose my job, or just irritate someone would I really be welcome any more?

What I need to do, now that I'm starting to get my finances back on track is save every cent I possibly can (for a decent sized down payment on a piece of property someday) and to protect myself. Nobody is going to look out after me in this wide world but me. I know this. Which kind of makes you feel quite alone in the world.

Sunday

Sunday was pretty busy for me. D got home from work then took me out to breakfast on our way to the outdoor gun range where there was a shooting event for world war 1 and 2 guns. D and I  weren't  shooting but volunteering as the score keepers for the shoot. I never got bored, I was too busy adding up scores to get bored out there. And really too busy to watch any of the shooting too.

The view from the score keeping spot...

I can't complain. There were no mosquitos and it was cool and breezy plus I found some wild black raspberries to munch on at one point. Yum!

When we got home, D took a bit of a nap for a while and I went outside. The weather was just too nice not to. I weeded my little tomato and the garlic patch and watched some wasps who made a neat little nest on the porch railing.

After a little bit of that, D and I took showers and bought some Italian beef sandwiches to take with us while we visited with S in the hospital. D's parents showed up for a visit too and boy can they chat! We didn't get out of there until after visitor hours were over. I was so tired I pretty much went strait to bed. Most of my energy seems to be in the mornings.

What a sad little patch of garlic.

In my old garden, I grew garlic for years, saving the biggest cloves for planting in the late fall every year from the heads I harvested that summer. Well, in the hell that was the last year of my life, I harvested garlic the previous summer, and it got put away and things got moved around and I broke my ankle so they just never got planted or eaten up. In a way, that's good as I would not have them now. But when I managed to go back and grab my things, I found the basket I had put the harvest in. Most of the garlic was no longer good for cooking (it should of been planted months ago!) and so I carefully picked out the ones that looked most like they had a chance at growing though I had my doubts about them. I didn't want to lose my stock completely so I stuck them in the ground out back of the new place. I planted 15, and to my surprise, all 15 took and grew. Well, they are rather weak looking (and yes, they need some weeds pulled....) and they are not in a very sunny location as I didn't have time when I reacquired them to make a proper bed, but at least they are ALIVE!!! I would usually be harvesting them soon but since I just planted them a month ago that's not going to happen. I may make a better bed for them and move them into a sunnier spot this fall, but I won't be harvesting them.

I'm just so glad that they are ALIVE!!!

I love clearance sales.

I love sales. Especially if it involves plants on sale. That's why, after I packaged up the yummy dehydrated strawberries I made over night, I headed out to county line greenhouse. This is a small local business that operates mainly in the spring and closes down June 30th. Everything they had left was on sale. I was hoping to find a few petunias to replace the ones that got destroyed in the storm but none were left. Oh well. I will just cut them back and see if the re grow again. I did buy a dwarf curry herb plant for $1. It's not hardy here but I will try to over winter it inside. It smells like curry! So it's a fun little find. I will have to research it on google to find out more about this plant.

I picked up a completely frivolous tropical vine plant as well. It has no use whatsoever except it's beauty. Also not hardy here at all so it will need to be over wintered. This cost a couple bucks. I used the QR reader on the tag of this plant and it just took me to the breeder of the plant with a picture of the plant with no real information provided on it's care and hardiness. So I googled and found more information on it though it was still pretty general. This one grows slower and shorter then other Mandavilles and is supposed to be more reistant to pests that like to pick on them but it likes heat and sun like the others. It doesn't like to be over watered so google warns not to put it in a pot bigger then it's top growth or it will be unhappy. Since we are getting tons of rain lately, I may have to transplant it into a sandier, faster drying mix.

And here I bought something I never thought I would as I've seen them everywhere and an not really that impressed with them normally. But this one was yellow, my favorite color, and had a scent. Add to that it only cost $4 and I was hooked. I bought a knockout  Sunny rose. 

And because I was in a spending mood now, I hoped into my car and went to big lots where I picked up a can of spray paint (to paint coffee cans to make them into pretty pots) ,which was $3,  more! seeds ($4) and a planner to help me keep track of the garden ($5). So I spent another $19 on garden related purchases today. Not very thrifty I suppose.

Pinks, dahlias, asparagus, and statice.

The handy day planner.. Yes I'm not a mom but I like how it was organized and had places for lists much more then any others I looked at.

The next purchase I want to make when next I can, is an outside digital weather station.

A busy few days during the Strawberry Super Moon!

Friday came and went pretty quickly, with plans to do some canning and camping. Now, I know with the whole Lupus thing, you are not supposed to run yourself ragged, but I really can't help myself. I feel so sluggish on those days I work full time that I try to cram as much into my day off as I possibly can. And I did, on Saturday. I worked to clean the kitchen early in the morning and do several loads of dishes, in prep for canning. Once S eventually woke up, we went shopping and bought 36 lbs of strawberries! We waited until D got home, since he had the recipes, before we got canning...and ended up not finishing it all until the wee hours of the next day. I was exhausted!

I bought a few more seeds while at one of the stores we shopped at.....

Sage, Spaghetti Squash and Onion. I may need a seed intervention. These ones really even weren't on clearance.

So bright and early Sunday morning I wake up and pack and get out the door at 6 a.m. after debating with myself if I really was up to camping after the long day before. But I lay there in bed, and just new I would kick myself if I did not go, especially after purchasing some new equipment to try for car camping the day before. Now the thing about campgrounds I dislike most especially at state parks, is the disrespect other campers have for each other...they don't realize people are there for peace and quiet...this is why I prefer to arrive Sunday and camp over Sunday and in the week, They are pretty much deserted for the most part.  I was so glad when the woman who was constantly yelling at her kids, insulting them and stuff, eventually left that afternoon. She was irritating other campers who had been there since Friday and Saturday who had to listen to it all that time. They pretty much cheered when she left and didn't spend another night. Someone else, had tossed all their bagged doggy poop into my fire pit instead of taking it to the dumpster. Gross!! Do these people not realize how much they ruin it for others? Or do they just not care??

I so miss being able to backpack and really get away. Car camping can really suck in comparison. But, the new gear worked out OK though I did not get to test it in rain yet.  It was a cheep tent, and the zippers annoyed me a bit but I do appreciate the gear loft in it. The stakes were flimsy and bent easily and didn't hold well in even the tiniest bit of wind, so those will be replaced before the next outing. My new camp stove worked like a champ, and so did the pot I cooked in. I didn't get to try the rain gear out as it was sunny there most of the time and 90! so quite warm and humid. At night, I went out to gaze at the super moon, which was pretty as it played peekaboo with the clouds.

Monday I packed up and did a little bit more exploring of the park, if I come back here again, it will be with my kayak in tow. Not much to do land wise here. Not a lot of exciting wild areas to explore by foot, even if I wasn't hurting too much to explore them. When I got home and showered, and my tent lain out to dry, and after I'd had something to eat,  Mickie woke up and we went to town to pick up some gun clips from someone. A powerful storm rolled through while driving and we had to take shelter from the wind behind a CVS as tree limbs were falling into the roads all over the place. There we waited it out a good ten minutes before heading home. We stopped to eat at Long John Silvers, and continued on. S wasn't feeling good so we hurried home but everywhere there were trees down on power lines and in streets. Some streets were blocked off already with yellow tape by emergency crews. Lots of the area was without power, including our home.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the winds ripped off some of the new siding off the house. It was all the way in someone's front yard so it traveled quite a ways.

So the power came back on yesterday, Tuesday about 10:30 am. Just after we got the generator out of it's box in the storage room and put together. The fridge and freezers were still cold so nothing spoiled.
Here is one of the trees that was blocking a road, cut so its off the road now. I bet those people in that house were thrilled it fell that way and not on them. It was a HUGE tree.

Now S hasn't been doing very well and yesterday afternoon went in to see her Dr. He admitted her directly into the hospital. :( I am very sad about this because her staff infection in her knee is back, and they may have to operate a 4th time on her. She has suffered so much since I met her, I really want her to feel good and happy. She has been so miserable and sick and depressed about it all. This morning when I visited her and brought her a few items she wanted, she did look a little better, a little less in pain. They have her on 3 antibiotics and pain reliever. She also had a urinary tract infection she didn't even know she had and her sugar is going crazy because of the pain and infection. I hope soon she can become healthy again. I'd really like to get to know her when she is happy.

A few seeds.

I found some seeds on clearance at Walgreens today while I was picking up a prescription. A lot of seeds I don't need like sunflowers and carrots and tomatoes but I found some herb seeds I liked, some zinnias and I have to have daisies! All but the zinnias were 69 cents each. The zinnias were 79 cents for some reason. This brings my total cost of a garden at this new place to $34.95, which includes the peach tree, and 3 houseplants as well.

  

Mango madness

Yeah I know they are not a fruit that you can grow in northwest Indiana, but here was this sad little fruit that nobody wanted to eat. Oh what was a garden deprived gardener supposed to do?

Why the answer my friends is simple. Fish out the giant hairy seed from the juicy, squishy, half rotting flesh.

What then? Well you carefully pry the hard seed shell away from the embryo plant and bury it in a pot of soil mix. The shell and all the mushy leftovers go into the compost of course.

Then carefully wrap the planted container in plastic. I used all recycled materials, including a milk jug and a bread bag so this plant has cost me $0!  I am the queen of thrifty gardening.

By the way, my single little tomato plant finally bloomed for the first time this year and its set fruit on those first blooms as well :). Now that makes me very happy. And yes, I need to weed it this coming weekend.

But thank you anyway for pointing out the weeds ;). And to tie this tomato into my thriftiness, I will be saving the seeds from this. Though black cherry isn't really an heirloom, it is open pollinated and stable so I will get for the most part, plants nearly identical to the original. 

Studying

I started studying this morning the for the technician exam, upstairs in the quiet of my room. It was cool this morning, the windows wide open after the oppressive heat up there of the days before. I had intended to study over the weekend but that went out the window quickly as I stayed busy with other things. Two small little Yorkie type dogs were lazy bones on my bed as I studied.

Friday I took off work not feeling the greatest, but I intended to get some work done in the yard...which I never ended up doing. Saturday, I ended up volunteering with D & S at a DNR event at a range in Winnemac for kids to learn gun safety and to shoot. I shot my first 22 rifle and a .308 also which was really cool. I was mainly a gopher to fetch things since I don't know anything about guns. D acted as a range officer and S helped with the cooking at the lunch station. It would of been a perfect day except for the mosquitoes and the rain. That evening we all went out to meet up with a bunch of other friends at Pepe's Mexican restaurant.

Sunday, again I found myself busy. S wasn't feeling good so she stayed in bed most of the day so I went grocery shopping with D after I got up early to work cleaning up the kitchen. We got some great deals on butter and cheese. We bought 14 blocks of cheese and 8 blocks of butter (saving $1 off the normal price for each one). I'm not used to buying up this much food at once. Before I was lucky to even afford one block of cheese and then the X would eat the whole thing in a day before I could get any. Its hard for me sometimes to watch them waste food. I can tell they don't have a shortage of it. I cringe when I watch S toss away rolls, just because it's the last one in the package instead of saving it to eat later. I mentioned to her that it could at least go into the compost pile...I am so used to going without food that the thought of throwing out a piece of bread just for being the last in the package is disturbing a bit to me. It can be frozen if nothing else to make bread crumbs or croutons for soup instead of tossed. And before you ask, I rescued that bun (it was still in the package) for my lunch today. They actually have food on the shelf that has gone past the sell buy date. That never happened when I was with X. We never had enough food to even get close to the sell by dates. I refuse to throw those out too. I will eat them, even if they are not the healthiest things in the world being mostly hamburger helper type boxed meals. Something I never really bought before since I couldn't afford the meat to cook up with them in the past.

I am hoping with time and gentle persuasion I can convince them to be a bit less wasteful. I am hoping that at least the waste can go into the compost instead to feed the soil for some good veggies eventually. I feel like it's less of a sin if it ends up being recycled that way.

Sunday night, I went over to my friend Joan's house and little Carley, and we had a girls movie night and dinner and some wine (for the grown ups only) and relaxed. Catching up on neighborhood gossip and making plans for next weekend. I went home intending to do some studying then, but S's brother came over to drop off two lil doggies for a few days. Of course that meant I was suddenly too distracted to study, having pups to play with. D isn't too much of an animal fan, so the dogs end up sleeping upstairs with me on my bed which is just fine by me. They are sweet boys (one is a bit prone to marking on things, as he's not yet snipped....) and I love petting them as I rest. I miss my cats and dog horribly and haven't slept well without their comfort. I slept well the last couple nights with dogs.

Monday, I walked and played with the dogs, and before I knew it I had to go to work. Work was supper busy and just about killed me. I was hurting bad. Today, I had time to study at last, I got the first chapter read in the text book before it was time for me to go to work and it hasn't been too bad tonight.

And through all of this, I managed to quit pop of which I am very addicted to. Its not healthy, even the diet stuff which I normally drink. I suffered through the headache and tiredness and now I am pop free. I intend to stay that way for now. This week's healthy habit I want to work on is to stop eating down at the cafeteria. Only food and leftovers from home, of which there are plenty, is what I will be eating. Yesterday was leftovers. Today was a nice salad with chicken that was grilled yesterday, shredded cheese, and dressing along with some fresh grapes. For a snack, I have Greek yogurt which I've never tried before and I hope it tastes OK.

Long post I know, but I had to catch up.

Added:
Looking at the ingredients list of the yogurt, there are black carrots listed! A quick google search reveals there are indeed black carrots. Who knew? :)

Energy

I'm certainly finding it hard to find the energy these days to do much beyond trudging trough work everyday. It seems like I just can never get enough sleep or rest. I'm sure my camping trip didn't help with that at all and I have a very busy weekend coming up. UGH. It doesn't help that I've decided to give up pop this week. I normally drink diet but I heard that can even be worse. There has been a lot of hype about it. Well, I normally live on the stuff to keep awake so its going to be a rough transition away from it. I'm adding some propel fitness drink mix to my water bottle to help me make it through. It has mainly just vitamins in it. I think I want to do one healthy thing each week as a challenge. Giving up pop this week, maybe next week I will give up buying food completely at the cafeteria and make sure to bring my own lunch every day.

Last night we had some strong storms come through. No damage to the property here and the power stayed on so no biggie for us after all the hype in the media about it. At least it cooled things down a bit.

I received my SPD certificate study books in the mail yesterday that I ordered on Friday so I need to set aside a time everyday for studying some really boring stuff. But, If I take the test and get certified I will make a little more $$ and more importantly, be able to find a job closer to home more easily. Less time commuting, and more money will help me towards my goals in the long term. So its a pretty big deal on the to-do list. :)

The sounds of silence...

Well I went away for 3 days, Sat., Sun., and Monday. And by the time I was gone, Teenager had gone home. She couldn't take it here. She couldn't take it that D & S would not put up with her complaining, lying and her attitude. I can't say I miss the constant chatter. I have my much needed solitude space back.

So I went kayaking for the first time in my kayak at last. I bought it last year in the summer and it never got used. X would never help me with it and there was never any extra cash for gas money to take it anywhere even had he would of helped. I camped out with a friend and some kids at Willow Slough which was fun, though I am not much of a car camper....it's just too much work the way my friend Joe likes to camp. I don't go camping to do 50 million dishes and to set up the words largest tents. I go to camp to play and relax.

I did see some pretty cool things though. Beautiful water lilies blooming, some neat birds, wildflowers, and turtles laying eggs.

Campfire Sunday evening after most in the campground have evacuated for Monday.

Car Pre-trip packed and ready for the 3 day weekend.

A smallish snapper turtle.

We watched this turtle momma come into camp, dig a hole, deposit eggs and bury them before returning to the lake. It took about an hour and a half for her to do it all.

I got too close and the adults chased me down...

A pretty wildflower

Camp.

At the Willow Slough firing range.

Just floating in the lake.

Launching the first time...

Joe and his kid in the canoe.

These opened as the day went on all over the lake.

Little wild pink roses all over.

Lots of birds here, I would like to get on the lake super early to catch even more wildlife active.

These coreopsis were blooming everywhere.