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.

Lost Cause Teenager

I don't think I have ever thought that about anyone in my entire life. But then I have never met anyone as contrary as Teenager. She will outright tell you she just simply doesn't care about the outside, or anything to do with the outside and sit there moaning about how bored she is. Around here, we have trails, bike paths, parks, lakes and all kinds of things to explore. We suggested some hiking trails at a park a block away. Hiking? Ugh. Nature. Ugh. Now she is in a house full of people who are of the homesteady type so often our conversations revolve around where our food comes from, garden improvements, plans, "the outside". She rolls her eyes, huffs, and pouts. She says it is not interesting. Nail polish and how to arrange it is interesting. And then she wonders why she has no friends at school. She tells everyone how boring they are.

I sit listening to her, thinking at first everyone was just being a bit harsh on her. I listened to her figuring she needed someone to listen. And she chatters away about material things. She admits to liking only material things. ONLY HER material things. She admits to destroying gifts, electronics, etc, because someone gave them to her so she didn't care about them.

I sit there, dumb founded.

I see it now as well. This is the type of person we call a zombie. The type of person who just doesn't care one iota about the world round here, and will happily admit it.

Words of wisdom fall on deaf ears.

We can only set a good example and prep for this person too, and maybe someday she will understand that everything in the world is interconnected and it affects everything of their life whether or not they care about it.

Mom hung up on me.

Mom knows I am going to the Doctor for something, and she's pissed I won't tell her why.

So she hung up on me while on the phone. She hates being told no.

But I do not want to tell her and here is why. She's a bit over bearing on things. What I need is friendly support when I ask for it....What I would get from her would be 1) a million poor babies and come homes and just give up, don't do that, etc and yadda yadda yadda you should do this and not that and come home blah blah blah and 2)telling the whole world about how messed up her daughter is even though its more of a private matter and should be up to me and only me to tell people my issues.

I know that sounds mean to say that but it's true! What I want/need is a "you can do it! Don't let this beat ya! Don't let this get you down! Thata girl!" kinda thing. My friends and those I live with give me that kind of support and encouragement. I feel valued and respected by them and it's a precious feeling. I am blessed in the friend department.

So let her be angry with me. I have to do what I have to do to make it from one day to the next for my own well being and sanity. This is why I live 3000 miles away and WHY I chose to live with others instead of "coming home" when I left my husband. Other people treat me with the respect of other adults. Mom, you seem incapable of that.

That being said and off my chest now, on to better and brighter things. :)

You go in for a Pap, leave with Lupus..

OK yesterday I was blind sided a bit by something. I am finally in a position where I can go to the Dr. and take care of me. And so I did just that. I went to a Dr. and got a physical. You know, the normal stuff. Plus the normal stuff a woman my age should get checked every year. Only I haven't been to a Dr. in years. I get some tests done and when the results come back, I go back to the Dr. to hear the results.

She starts off with everything is fine. Everything is great. Except for one thing. I think you have Lupus.

Um. I sit there, kind of confused. I'm not even really sure what Lupus is.

Taking my silence as encouragement to continue, she explained why she came to that conclusion. She gives me a date and a prescription for more tests. She gives me homework, so to speak, for me to look up on the Internet. She almost forgets to give me the pap smear test before she sends me on my way. I had to remind her that's why I came to see her in the first place.

I'm so going for a second opinion if the tests come back with the same.

In the mean while, enjoy this pretty rose that is growing on the property.

A peony blooms!

There is a row of these pretty peonies in the yard...just thought I would share. :)

My compost is drunk.

Good morning. Its a bit chilly here in northern Indiana. Only here will it be in the 80's one day and the 30's the next! Woke up pretty cold this morning. Two of the walls here upstairs are uninsulated and I had put the little heater away for the season thinking "Hey, it's June. No need for a heater anymore..." Yeah. Bad call on my part.

Anyway I tried to blog yesterday but it was a very busy day off for me. And when I finally did retire to my room to do some blogging, Teenager decided to intrude and insisted on sitting in my chair talking to me about hair, her boyfriend, and what ever else. After a while I was only half listening and wanting her to go to bed. I can take only so much chatter like that. Even when I was her age that stuff was not an interesting topic for me. So I gave up any thought on blogging last night and tried to watch some Youtube. Something I knew that would bore her and make her leave....Gardening! Hahahaha. She lasted much longer then I anticipated though and by the time she excused her self it was pretty late and time for some zzzzs myself.

So yeah....yesterday started out busy and ended not as I imagined. Went to breakfast in La Porte with a social group which lasted past noon. Then when I got home, I went to check my bank account to make sure I had enough $$ for my Dr.s appointment this morning. I had exactly $44 buckaroos in my account. Seriously, how sad is that???? But, this should be the last time my account is ever that low again. With out the x draining everything for his addictions, and without all the bills I had before (my last check went to catching up on the car payment and car insurance) then this should no longer be an issue. :) So yeah, a milestone for me indeed on my little journey to new freedom! I did not intend to use any more cash then necessary for my Dr.s appointment and to buy one thing, an Aloe plant which was on my wish list and I knew Walmart had just got some in fresh for $4.  So next I went to Walmart.

I parked outside the garden center, big mistake! I walked past bags of soil, mulch and amendments. Out of curiosity I glanced at the trees I was passing....OMG Fruit trees for $9.98!!!! On closer inspection, I only saw two types. Peach and Red Apple. They did not have any variety name or real info on the tags. I'm picky about apples and when I get them again, I want semi dwarf trees. I doubted these were semi dwarf. Not for $ 9.98. But I know D said he wanted a peach tree. I quickly text him. We had not planned on getting trees YET. We had been talking about it maybe for the fall but for $9.98 how could we pass this up?

I picked up the peach. And made it inside to pick up the aloe plant also. More then I wanted to spend but I'm good on gas for the week, and I get paid Friday so I will survive. I've had a lot less for a very long time. Surviving is what I do. I do not know if it is a cling peach or what, I hope it's a cling peach as we want to can them here. If not....I guess they will be for fresh eating only. The tag did have one of those QR label things to scan with a smart phone but even that didn't have any more information just that it could get 15-25 feet tall and how to plant it....

So I maneuver the tree into my car and the aloe and I and I go and visit my friend Joe on the way home for some trip planning for next weekend. I spent about an hour there before taking my living prizes back home.

Earlier in the morning, I had gone through my garlic bulbs. Hoping some of them were still good enough to plant. I've grown the same garlic for 10 years just about and did not want to lose it and I had been given permission to go ahead and plant them wherever somewhere out of the way. I picked out 15 of the more likely to maybe make it and tossed the rest in the compost bin. They were not even worthy of eating at this point. I dug up a small rectangle of earth next to the compost bin  to get it in the ground. It may be shady there but at this point, I'm trying to save the roots, not get a harvest.


The soil here is very easy to dig. Its very sandy and that will pose a challenge I know considering there is no outside water source besides rain here. Which is why I'm reluctant to really start a garden here yet. I added some potting soil to the little patch to help since I don't have any compost ready yet.

Speaking of compost....It smells drunk now. Seriously like beer. My landlord, getting into the spirit of composting now, poured one of his tanks of beer into it. He makes beer I guess sometimes and had an old tank he wanted to dispose of so it smells very beer like out there now hahahaha.

I didn't get the peach planted yet as it was cold, damp and chilly out and wanted to think about where to put the peach tree. D and I decided the front yard would be fine, kind of near the porch while he bar-b-qued some pork chops and potatoes.

We ate dinner inside and chatted a bit. Teenager was in trouble with her father, so it was a somewhat quiet dinner and I escaped upstairs to try and blog, which of course didn't happen.

Routine

Routines are calming for me as an introvert. And for a busy body it is necessary in order to fit everything that needs to be done in a day along with all the want to get dones. Routines are safe...it means your life is stable enough to have time management down to a science. Things don't get forgotten unless you want to forget them. Routines mean your life is pretty mellow and relatively stress free, freeing your mind from the task of having to plan out each and every day to use it for more important things, like say creative imagination and day dreaming. Even in a bad living situation, there was routine making it easy to stay in that comfort zone day in and day out for years. Even if the zone is not all that comfortable or healthy it was not as scary as throwing that routine to the winds and seeing where it landed...

But I finally did it. I made the choice to turn my world as I had known it for the last 10 years upside down in hopes of something better.

So far my world has been mostly better from the minute I made that decision. (Putting my best friend of 5 years down 2 weeks ago isn't included in that better part....that just about killed me.)

But the lack of routine has me fumbling around like a ditz. I blame it on being blond, jokingly, to D & S and everyone else who's noticed. They just shake their heads at me and remind me of this and that like I'm a lost and confused puppy. I can only imagine what they think of me at the moment...I am certainly not showing off the best my I.Q. has to offer at the moment.

There is no routine to my disorder of a living-out-of-boxes kind of life. I am not used to all the socialization and the events that D & S drag me along to (I'm not unwilling, I gladly go, it's just all new for me and somewhat disorienting). There are tons of new friends to be balanced with making time to visit the old along with trying to make time for the hobbies I enjoy and exercise, and work, and working on this house to clean it up in lieu of rent...

But slowly it is getting there. It will get there to where I have a routine again. I will figure out what day is best for doing chores, i will learn to manage and balance my time. Things are slowly getting unpacked and organized and I've even started to block in some "me" time. And then I can really start to shine... :)

Well, maybe. I have some bumps ahead, like looking for a closer job and things like that but what the heck, maybe chaos can be a routine too.

Some things are fun though like this little guy...I ran down the stairs and outside half dressed and only in socks out to the street to rescue him. I had seen him from the upstairs window. Just in the nick of time too, as I stopped a car from hitting him.

Yes....I am one of those crazy people who stop to move turtles out of the road....

Painted Turtle