This Keeps Happening

Grrr.  I keep going a month or more between postings.  I don't know what my problem is, other than parenting full time and working full time.  Hardy-har-har.  Actually, (and seriously, I'm kinda embarrassed to say this publicly but here it is -- ) it's much more difficult to open my laptop, log in, and navigate to this page than it is to unlock my iPhone and play Words with Friends or Angry Birds or the like.  It's so much easier that I do that most of the time.

I hate that I do that, too.  I can feel my brain turning to mush because I have not stimulated the writing neurons that exist up there.  They're being pushed to the side by the neurons that fling birds at pigs and concoct such thrilling words as "QI" or "ZA" for 8,762 points.  (Not really. 8,762 points, that is.  They are being shoved into the nether regions of my brain.)

In the time since I last posted anything meaningful, the kids have returned home for the school year (and gone to ABQ for fall break and returned from that, too.), I have started a new job, the gardens have been put to bed, I've taken countless pictures that I want to show you and we've had a couple of snowstorms.  Jeez, I kinda stink at this whole blogging thing.

I hope to get back into it.  I really do love it.  Maybe this will provide the stimulus to actually sit down with the laptop and a cup of coffee on Saturday morning.

Day 15, A Song that Describes Me

Keep drinkin' coffee
Stare me down across the table
While I look outside

So many things I'd say if only I were able
But I just keep quiet
And count the cars that pass by

You've got opinions, man
We're all entitled to 'em
But I never asked

So let me thank you for time
And try to not waste any more of mine
Get out of here fast

I hate to break it to you babe
But I'm not drowning
There's no one here to save

Who cares if you disagree
You are not me
Who made you king of anything
So you dare tell me who to be
Who died
And made you king of anything

You sound so innocent
All full of good intent
You swear you know best

But you expect me to
Jump up on board with you
Ride off into your delusional sunset

I'm not the one who's lost
With no direction oh
But you won't ever see

You're so busy makin' maps
With my name on them in all caps
You got the talkin' down just not the listening

And who cares if you disagree
You are not me
Who made you king of anything
So you dare tell me who to be
Who died
And made you king of anything

All my life
I've tried
To make everybody happy while I
Just hurt
And hide
Waitin' for someone to tell me it's my turn
To decide

Who cares if you disagree
You are not me
Who made you king of anything
So you dare tell me who to be
Who died
And made you king of anything

Who cares if you disagree
You are not me
Who made you king of anything
So you dare tell me who to be
Who died
And made you king of anything

Let me hold your crown, babe
 

I'm posting the lyrics to this song because they're so powerful.  This song compares and contrasts the old me with the new me.  It's my personal anthem.  Every time I hear it, it's a reminder never to take my own independence for granted.  I've got smarts and I'm not afraid to use them.  I don't deserve someone else's maps, someone's delusional sunset.  I deserve to go where I want to go because I want to go there.  And I will go there, dammit.

Ten Years

It's surreal.  I can't seem to grasp that I lived at a time when something so horrible happened, that I saw it with my own eyes.  Even though it was on television the horror was so tangible.

Solomon had the assignment to talk to me about 9/11 for one of his classes.  I told him the grim facts just like I have a few times before.  But then I told him how terrifying it was.  How saddening to think about that much hate causing that many lost lives.  I told him what I saw and how it has affected me.  I told him that I still can't understand why or how.  I think he's old enough now to hear more than just the bare bones story.

I watched a documentary on CBS called 9/11: Ten Years Later.  It was very well done and I think it's because the two brothers who filmed it didn't even know what they were filming.  They started out to tell the story of a young firefighter working his way through the ranks in FDNY and ended up getting a front row seat to the carnage that was and is 9/11.  They told the story with such grace and sensitivity that I got chills several times.

I want to go to Ground Zero some day.  I don't know anyone who was lost there but I feel like it's important to go anyway.  It's part of life as an American now.

Day 14, A Song People Wouldn't Expect Me to Like

This video is really long, like ridiculously long.  I first posted a different version on Facebook but that one had disabled embedding so I couldn't put it up and I had to settle for this one instead.

I think this category is a little weird.  One, I don't know what people expect me to like.  Two, I don't care.  I've gone to great lengths to stop thinking so much about what people expect of me and focus more on what I expect of myself.

Anyway, I thought that an older song might be something that people wouldn't expect me to like and I really love this song by Dire Straits so I decided to post it.  Then I was telling Paul about it and he said that he would totally expect me to like this song and I said that was because he knows me better than most people do.  So Paul started trying to think of something that I like that he wouldn't expect me to like.

After some discussion he finally thought of dubstep.  And of course, he's right.  I hadn't even heard of dubstep until a few months ago when Paul and Cole told me about it.  Dubstep isn't a specific song, it's a genre of music that Paul really didn't think I would like.  But I did.  So here's a sample.

Day 13, A Guilty Pleasure Song

I think guilty pleasure means that in some part of yourself you think it's not okay to like something but you do anyway, consequences be damned.  So this song is only categorized as a guilty pleasure song if there is some reason I should not like it or some reason I should not like Christina Aguilera.

If I were a lesser person I might say that Christina Aguilera's music is a little *ahem* bubble gum-my.  Or I might say that her "Dirty" phase was a touch crass.  Or I might say that the tendency to call her Xtina bugs me because of the whole Xmas and Xtian thing.  But I try not to be a lesser person so I'm not saying those things.

What I am saying is that I love this song because it makes me feel very RAWR on days when I don't even feel very  meow.  I like that the song is full of contrasting imagery because I very often feel that way myself.  I can be up, I can be down, I can be weak or strong, happy or sad.

Day 12, A Song by a Band I Hate

I have nothing against this particular band or this particular song. However, I absolutely detest this genre of music. Can't stand it. Not even a little bit. I hate that the rhythm follows the weird up beats on

Every.
Single.

Song. 

I hate the constant, repetitive accordion. I hate that the lead singers in these types of bands always force their voices through the larynx and into the nasal cavity. I hate that they never sound like they have enough air. I hate it all. It's nauseating.

I didn't even listen to the whole song because it makes me want to pierce my tympanic membranes with a blunt stick. I just googled this band and this was the first song that came up. So here it is, in all its gut-wrenching, brain-grating glory.

Day 11, A Song by My Favorite Band

Bendita la luz - Mana y Juan luis guerra by sanshiro

Just like favorite song, I cannot choose a favorite band. But if I had to choose one band to listen to for the rest of my life, it would be Maná. Or Adele. Or Depeche Mode. Or maybe Steely Dan. Or maybe they'd just have to kill me. What? You know, the people making me choose just one band's music for life -- they'd have to inflict whatever consequences there are when I couldn't choose one band to listen to for life. Side note: I don't really understand that whole dilemma when people say, "If I had to choose just one band/food/shirt/color/whatever for the rest of my life ..." Who is going to make you do that?

Or!  There's this song, done by the above band covering it after it was originally recorded by Marco Antonio Solis.

Day 10, A Song That Makes Me Fall Asleep

I can't think of a single song that will actually make me fall asleep or even feel sleepy.  The box fan in my bedroom, though?  Puts me right out.  But that's neither here nor there.

Once upon a time Miriam was the happiest, mellowest, most pleasant baby ever known to man.  Until it was time to ride in the car.  The instant she was strapped into that car seat she morphed into the angriest, scream-iest, most stressful baby ever.  And then one day the ex-husband and I discovered that this song instantly tamed her.  She stopped crying, she fell asleep and we arrived at our destination much less harried.  We wore out that CD.

Miriam still adores this song.  It's on her MP3 player and she listens to it regularly.  And you know what?  She's one of the happiest, mellowest, most pleasant little girls ever.  Until it's time to ride in the car.  Just kidding!  She did grow out of that.

Day 9, A Song to Which I Can Dance

This is the only thing to which I can dance.  I am sorely lacking in the rhythm department..  Also, if you do not like having this song run through your head all week I suggest not actually viewing the video.

Day 8, A Song to Which I Know All the Words

One thing I cannot abide is the atrocious grammar in the posted rules for the 30 Day Song Challenge.  Today's title says, "a song that you know all the words to".  I don't consider myself to have perfect grammar but I do make an effort. That whole thing about the ending preposition is just something I cannot stomach. So I'm being a nerd and re-wording the title.

So here we have it -- a beautiful melody by Amos Lee.  It's mellow, it's pretty, it's kind of melancholy sounding.  I love it.  And I know all of the words.  That's not something I can say about very many songs.

Earth Weirdness

Last night we got home from the Astros' game about 11:00 and the kids went straight to bed.  I did too but I didn't sleep right away.  I have to catch up on Words with Friends you know.  That takes a while.  Plus, I just updated Angry Birds Rio and this requires that I attempt all levels as soon as possible.

So there I was, lying in bed freeing little birdies, killing marmosets and constructing words I didn't know were words until WWF came along.  I was just starting to feel sleepy and about to shut off my phone when my bed moved.  I am not kidding.  It was a very slow, steady movement back and forth, 3 times.  At first I thought one of the kids was climbing onto my bed.  They weren't.

And then.  Then.  Then my hyperactive imagination went straight to the Boogey Man.  Don't laugh.  I had this fear as a kid that there was a Boogey Man under my bed that would grab my ankles when I tried to go to the bathroom or something.  For that reason, I always leapt off my bed a good 2 feet or so when I had to pee in the middle of the night.

So what did I do last night?  I leapt off my bed, turned on the light and flipped up the dust ruffle, golf club in hand to smash the Boogey Man in the face.  There was no Boogey Man. Whew, I dodged a bullet there.

I lay back down wondering what in the world would have caused my bed to move like that.  And I had this fleeting thought, "What if it was an earthquake?  Is that even possible?" And then I laughed at myself. That's about as likely as the Boogey Man scenario, I thought.  And then I went to sleep.

But wait! We did actually have an earthquake in Colorado last night. Its epicenter was near Trinidad, which is one of the two towns where the ex-husband and I meet to trade off the kids. Apparently people felt it a good 75 miles north of here, even. So weird.  Maybe I need to re-think the likelihood of this Boogey Man.

And there was another earthquake, a bit bigger, near Washington, D.C. today. What must the incredible odds be of earthquakes as big as these in two places so unused to having earthquakes? In the same 24 hour period? I'm telling you, this is serious weirdness.

Day 7, A Song That Reminds Me of an Event

This song is one that I have related to for a few years.  It reminds me of my move from Texas to Colorado 3 1/2 years ago.

I listened to it repeatedly when I was longing to make that move.  It was during that time that I realized home is not as much about the location as it is about the people that are there.  Home means comfort, contentment, love and peace.  It's the feeling I have inside that tells me I'm in the right place.  Every time I hear this song I'm taken back to those feelings of sadness and loneliness and I'm reminded of how good I really have it right here, right now.

P.S. I skipped Day 6, A Song That Reminds Me of Somewhere because a) I couldn't think of one and b) we went to the Rockies vs. Astros game last night and did not get home until reallyreallyreally late.


P.P.S. There was an earthquake last night! No worries -- we are fine. More about that later.

Day 5, A Song That Reminds Me of Someone

Paul has introduced me to a lot of new music.  This is one of the first songs he played that I had never before heard.  We were in his old car (old as in he no longer owns it, not old as in actually old) on our second date and he put in a CD to listen to while we drove to Spudnik/High Dive.

Day 4, A Song That Makes Me Sad

Johnny Cash's cover of this song is, in my opinion, so much better than Nine Inch Nails. He put so much feeling into the music that I can feel it. Unfortunately, Nine Inch Nails sounds like an emo kid inventing imaginary ills to cry about.

Day 3, A Song that Makes Me Happy

This isn't actually a music video but that's okay because the 30 Day Song Challenge is not about the video, it's about the music.  There might be a Video Killed the Music Star joke in there some where.  Let me know if you find it.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite songs because it just oozes happiness.  Plus, Marc Broussard's voice is nothing short of amazing.  Whenever I'm having a bad day, this song always makes me feel better.  Always.

Day 2, My Least Favorite Song

I despise this song with the heat of a thousand white hot suns.  It represents everything that is wrong with most hip hop music today: it's vulgar, unmusical, repetitive, stupid and utilizes no talent whatsoever.  I hate it.

For Next Year's Garden

We have learned a lot in this short bout of gardening. Next year we want to:

1. Till up more land.  We will use the extra space for more pumpkin vines and more of the things we really liked from this year but haven't had much of -- green beans, peas, carrots.
2. Plant onions and garlic.  We cook with these a lot but didn't think to plant any this year.
3. Plant fewer grape and cherry tomato varieties and more of the bigger ones that are good for canning.
4. Plant earlier.  We realized that we could have planted several of our seeds outdoors much earlier than we did this year.  Even with occasional late snow storms in May, many of the plants that do not do well with transplanting can go into the ground in late April.
5. Rig up a rudimentary greenhouse with plastic sheeting and 1 X 2 lumber pieces, low to the ground.  With some strategically placed slits in the plastic we think we can let in plenty of water while still keeping in enough heat to protect the seeds and young plants.
6. Plant more things directly into the ground and not transplant as much.  We have noticed a marked difference in the strength and production of plants that were not transplanted.  With the greenhouse system this should be possible.
7. Plant carrots in stages with several re-plantings all summer.  This was recommended by several sources but we didn't get around to doing it this year.  Also, give the carrots lots more space.  We've thought about dropping a new seed into the hole when we pull a carrot to maximize our space and time.
8. Cage or trellis the tomatoes and peas much earlier.
9. Possibly plant only one zucchini and one yellow squash.  Those have been prolific producers and we're running out of things to do with them.  If my freezing experiment goes well I'd like to plant as much as we did this year because we can eat frozen stuff for a long time.  If the freezing does not go well I'm happy with just one plant of each.
10. Maybe start tomatoes earlier.  We're struggling with this decision.  Tomatoes take so long to get going that it would be nice to start them earlier.  However, they would need to be moved from small peat pots into larger pots and kept inside for several weeks to avoid snow.  If they stay in pots all summer we run into problems with getting them enough water because this climate is extremely dry and pots are difficult to keep sufficiently watered. And there isn't an easy way to water pots if we're gone for several days at a time.  I think we could start Siberian tomatoes (the colder weather variety) inside in March and then move them outside into our greenhouse contraption in April.  Maybe.
11. Plant lettuces.  They're a cooler weather plant (I had no idea!) and we could definitely put those in our green house in the spring.
12. Maybe apply some sort of weed killing treatment to the soil early on in the spring.  The weeds have been out of control and it's very frustrating.  We're conflicted about this, too.  On one hand we like the idea of keeping this organic and using only natural products.  On the other hand -- Weeds!  Argh!
13. Plant some strawberries and raspberries.  I made jam out of the sour cherries in my back yard and it's delicious.  I'd like to make more jam of different kinds because we like it but it's difficult to find any in the grocery store without HFCS in it.

So far this is what we've discussed doing differently.  I'll probably be updating this list as the garden progresses through the end of summer and into fall.

Gardening Endeavours

I've meant to write about our garden for months and months. But I kept running into other things to do and then more time passed and the prospect of writing such a long post and adding so many pictures to it seemed so daunting. But this is me, finally sitting down to write about this project.  It could take a few days of editing and revising.

Paul started by hiring a guy with a tiller to come out and till up the plot. They mixed in a bunch of soil amendments since the soil in Colorado tends to be very alkaline and most veggies do better in more acidic soil. They rolled out sheets of weed blocking material and then Paul arranged soaker hoses over the weed block. This was in late March.

A couple of weeks after that Paul purchased a soil test kit and we tested our soil's pH and its content of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus.

 

Around this time we began planting seeds in paper egg cartons and peat pots.  We planted several varieties of  tomatoes and peppers, watermelons, two types of cucumbers, broccoli and pumpkins.  We also purchased seeds for green beans, peas, yellow squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, beets and carrots.  We didn't start any of these in cups because their instructions stated that they are best started outdoors and do not transplant well.

 

We tended our seedlings indoors for almost a month with about 10 days of outdoor hardening and then finally decided that it was time to put some outside.  We did this on May 14th.  On May 15th we had a huge storm that lasted for 48 hours.  We got several inches of freezing rain and snow and gave up completely on the idea that any of our plants would survive.  Fortunately, we had only transplanted about half of our seedlings so we still had some to work with.

Near the end of May we started our outdoor seeds and moved the rest of the seedlings outside.  Everything transplanted pretty well.  I think we lost a couple of cucumbers and some peppers but we had plenty of both left.  By this point most of the snowstorm transplants had died and we pulled them up to make room for healthier plants.  We had a few tomato plants persevere -- namely a variety called Siberian that is cultivated in colder climates and can produce fruit all the way until the first frost.  We had a sturdy pumpkin vine pull through as well.

By this time we were getting really frustrated with the weed block material.  It's kind of a pain to work around and it doesn't do much to block the growth of weeds.  We've found ourselves reaching under the sheets to pull weeds that are out of our reach otherwise.  Quite annoying.  The one thing it is good for is holding in water that might evaporate from the soil without some extra cover.  We haven't decided if this is a worthy trade off yet.

It's difficult to tell from this photo but the weed block sheets are bulging up due to the large masses of weeds beneath them.  Weed block my foot.  And of course there are lots of weeds between the rows.  We weren't worried about those because we walked on them so much they weren't much of a problem.  A couple of weeks after this photo we realized that some of the weeds are climbing, viney species.  They like to use the stems of our plants for climbing.  So every once in a while we have to untwist a vine from a plant so it doesn't strangle.

It wasn't long before we began seeing flowers on many of our plants.  This was so exciting!  It was tangible evidence that something was going right.  It would still be a long, long time before we got anything edible but that didn't matter.  We were growing things!

Broccoli is a strange plant.  We have 16 of them and they're huge.  Not as big as zucchini plants but pretty darn close.  They've all had a tiny sprout like this in them but they progress quickly from this to all out flowering if you don't watch closely.  Flowering broccoli is bad because that means it's done and you won't get any more broccoli.  So we're being careful to snap off the sprouts in hopes of getting bigger sprouts.

The green beans have been delicious and plentiful.  We're going to plant more of them next year because we've enjoyed them so much this year.  These were our first beans, quite tiny little things.  They quickly grew to a nice, edible size and they've continued to produce well for several weeks.

The peas haven't done very well.  They got hit pretty hard by a rabbit or two and the wind was really harsh to them.  We've decided they need more trellising than most of our tomatoes.

The first things we harvested were squash and zucchini.  Those plants are taking off like you wouldn't believe.  Well, you might, especially if you've ever grown your own squashes.  They thrive in Colorado.  Actually, they more than thrive -- we need a new word for how well these suckers grow here.  It's kind of insane.

The pumpkin vine is growing a good sized pumpkin but it's just growing that one.  We have decided that we will plant 4 vines next year in hopes of getting one pumpkin from each so all four kids can have their own pumpkin to do with whatever they would like.

We have some promising looking peppers, both sweet and hot varieties.  The tomato plants are laden with green fruit.  I can't wait until they ripen.  We're going to have a canning party!  And lots of fresh salsa!

We learned that carrots need way more room to grow than we thought and that it's really worth it just to plant one seed at a time, no matter how tiny they are.  We had to thin them mercilessly and we missed out on a lot of food that way.  Also, the ones left behind have been puny and not as sweet as I'd like.

This is a cantaloupe.  We planted these because Miriam loves, loves, loves cantaloupe.  I really hope we get something edible from this vine.  There are half a dozen small fruits growing.  I heard from another, much more experienced gardener that they don't do very well here.  We'll see I guess.

This is an eggplant plant.  We purchased two from the local garden supply store when we heard that they do well here.  It was late in the season to start new seeds and we wanted to try our hand at eggplants so here it is.  No fruit yet but they do produce some beautiful purple blossoms.

This is our first lemon cucumber.  These little things were a fun surprise.  I'd never heard of them until I saw the seeds at the store.  I am so glad we have them, though.  The green variety we're growing has very bitter skin and we're pickling most of them.  The lemon cucumbers are perfect, though.  Exactly what summer should taste like!

Beets did absolutely nothing.  We even planted a second round of several beet seeds when we realized none of the first round had sprouted and still got nothing.  I'm not disappointed as I do not like beets.  Paul likes them though so he was kind of bummed about that. 

And this is just a plain gorgeous look at several yummy things we harvested!  We did it!  We're doing it -- growing our own food!

Day 1, My Favorite Song

Apparently I've become a terrible blogger.  In an attempt to get myself back into the groove I'm doing the 30 Day Song Challenge which means I have to post at least one thing every day.  I think this is really a Facebook thing (it's where I got the idea and the rules and such) but I want to have all these songs easily searchable by me so I'm putting them here, too.



There is no way I could ever pick a favorite song of all time but this is a current favorite.  Love the harmonies, love the style, especially love the video and how it perfectly complements the style of the music.  Superb all around.

Well, Hello There!

Yes, I'm still in existence, although I think I've forgotten how to blog.  It's been about 2 months, hasn't it?  Ah, well, I have good reasons.  Reasons like moving and finals (in the same week! Egads!), the kids' many end-of-year engagements at school, me starting the summer term, getting accepted to nursing school and then the nursing program shutting down.  (Yes, they really closed it. Grrr.)  So that's what's been up.

First things first -- we got into the new house.  It's awesome.  The open space has become the kids' new favorite place to play.  We have the second (or fourth, depending on how you look at it) unit in a row of 5 so there are neighbors on either side of us.  One of the units is empty and the other has a very quiet, very nice family living in it.  I can only hear them very faintly on the rarest of occasions.  And it's never screaming swear words and such.  I'm growing some flowers in the front yard and trying to grow some vegetables in the back.  Paul and I are planting my herb garden this afternoon.

Speaking of gardening, our massive veggie garden in Paul's backyard is doing quite well.  We have no actual food yet but it's getting there.  And it's a lot of work.  A whole lot of work.  But it's rewarding and we are having a good time with it.  We're also taking notes so we can do this better next year because we have learned a lot in the short time we've been working on this.

The kids have left to spend the summer with the ex-husband and the step-mom.  Solomon has completed elementary school and will be going to middle school next year.  I can't believe it.  Miriam will be in her last year of elementary school next year and Samuel will be half way through, in the third grade.  It's shocking that this has happened so fast.  I swear, just a few days ago I was changing their diapers and sitting through marathon nursing sessions.

I finished microbiology with an A.  Woot!  That turned out to be a really fun class.  My professor was terrific and our experiments were a lot of fun.  My unknown specimen was Proteus vulgaris.  At least, it was, until it became contaminated with something else (I suspect E. coli since all three of my lab partners all had E. coli.  Someone -- maybe even myself -- was not perfect with their sterilization technique.) and messed up my last few test results.  No worries, though because the professor said that happens in all her classes to someone.  Our grade was not based on maintaining a pure sample, but rather on testing appropriately and demonstrating that we knew why tests were performed and what the results meant.

And algebra ... well, I'd rather not talk about that.  We'll just say that I ended up passing but I hated every single second of it and I'm not proud of my grade at all.

Nursing school in general is a huge mess and I'm still trying to sort out how to reach my goal.  It's all being reworked and will probably take a very long time.  Ugh.

So that's what's going on here.  I'll try to keep up better for the rest of the summer.