gift cards and seed catalogs

[liminal_space]

~ last night i started getting itchy-eye and rubbed it until it got all sorts of worse: red, swollen, squinty. today it's quite a bit better, but i can still tell it wants to get up to its nonsense again. mister gave me an allergy pill and i took it, rubbed some coconut oil on the eyelid and below my eye and am hoping that takes care of everything. how can just ONE eye be a stinker? (stink eye! ha!)

~FIL came by today to discuss the best ways to wire in the new-to-us kiln and while he was here i talked to him about planting. he said that he usually puts stuff in the ground around june 1st and i was thinking "OMG THAT IS LATE" — but actually, it's not too much later than what i'd do in the mountains. there, the rule of thumb was right around mother's day, so there you go. 

i'm SUPER excited about the garden this year and have a catalog from both burpee and rare seeds; both have been read front to back and have been marked up with what i want. there's also a chance that a local dude who has a greenhouse will let me use his facility to get some seed started AND can impart knowledge about when to start what. 

in california? you just stick everything in the ground and it grows. california is magic and i miss it, but here is good in a different way. like....horse, chicken, goat, garden good sort of way. and soft skies. and cheese. and big water close by good. 

~ i was telling my friend b. that i'm trying to adopt an edwardian lady of leisure lifestyle....mixed with peasant farmer....and beth from yellowstone....and a victorian hobby botanist. it's a hard combination, but i'm getting better at it. 

one thing i'm doing is playing with watercolors and not having any expectations of what i produce. which is hard. i am NOT a great artist or even a good one. which rankles me to NO END, because i WANT to be a good artist --- it would thrill me to be able to paint moody landscapes that i liked enough to share with people and hang on my wall. 

i know i'm super critical of myself and sometimes it's to the point of debilitating, but i'm trying to not listen to my inner critic. she's such a bitch sometimes, but she does come from a place of honesty. 

~ it looks like we will be able to pay off most of the credit cards (new mortgage guy said keep the balances at 19-20% for a few months before paying them off all the way) in february. that makes me SO happy. i hate credit cards now — they're traps. i also love them, but shhhh. 

the funds are available to buy a pilates reformer, but i'm going to hold off. i have some goals i have to achieve before we drop that much money on a piece of exercise equipment. i have to show myself i'm going to stick with it and not just sprawl on it and play. 

plus, that money would buy my riding lawnmower with the drag and the wide mowing deck, and that's going to be more necessary in the next few months. and maybe there will be enough leftover to buy 97 gallons of OFF, because i KNOW these mosquitoes are just waiting for it to warm up so they can eat me alive. 

bugs. i hate bugs. well, dumb bugs. i like pretty bugs. =D 

~ it's pretty cold here, even though the temperature suggests i should be fine. it's a tiny big breezy, but nothing major. mister said, "it's the moisture in the air" and maybe he's right. or maybe this weather just confuses me. 

ok. i need to do some skewl stuff then some edwardian lady stuff. i wish that edwardian lady stuff involved a ball, but alas. no. 

Comments

[kensmind.livejournal.com]

Wow, you are so lucky, you grow things! And bet you grow things that you can eat? And I bet they are things you can eat that you can also actually taste? And I bet they taste so much better that the stuff that gets processed and sent to supermarkets. And if all of this is correct, you are not just a gardener, you are a superhero!

[suzanna-o.livejournal.com]

For your Edwardian lady life of leisure: I highly recommend reading Elizabeth von Arnim: Elizabeth and Her German Garden, The Solitary Summer.

[namastaybaybay.livejournal.com]

I haven’t gotten any seed catalogs, but I have been shown on Amazon (and how did they know) the beautiful sunflowers in all varieties that I grow almost every summer. I didn’t last summer, as I was still navigating my office, but this year I will make up for lost time.

[cerezamarrero.livejournal.com]

I just started to get comfortable with watercolors in the past year or two...would love to see your work if you're comfortable posting it. I'm not quite to that stage yet (for the most part). We usually plant things during the first couple of weeks in May too. Once the threat of frost is gone which usually happens in mid-late April, but to be on the safe side, we give it a week or two in Illinois. Happy new week!

[honor-reid.livejournal.com]

I can't wait till spring. I love plants and plant shopping. lol

I hope you are able to obtain your Edwardian farmer lady of leisure lifestyle you are craving!

Watercolor paintings have always looked so magical to me. It's awesome that you are trying it!

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

i USED to grow things that were edible, but i'm scared out here! shorter growing season means i have to pay more attention, and i'm more of a distracted gardener. o.O i imagine the one thing i'll do OK on is tomatoes and peppers, so i'll be able to at least make salsa and spaghetti sauce. :) soooooo.....IF i can can it and IF it tastes good (all dependent on IF i can grow stuff), would you want a jar of spaghetti sauce? because srsly, as a homesteader (hahahaha) i'm going to have STUFF. lol

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

!!!!!!!!

Thank you for adding to the fullness of my Edwardian Lady Life of Leisure(tm). lol (I will for sure check that out!)

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

I'm ordering quite a few varieties of sunflowers — most for cutting, some just for display. Hope you saved seeds for replanting. :)

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

oh, lort...no. no you can NOT see. they're HORRIBLE. lol when they get better, maybe. i'm honestly NOT an artist....i just like pretty colors. :)

so i found out i also have to be careful with some vegetables and flowers here — in the height of summer, the days are so long that some plants don't get the night they need. o.O i didn't even know that was a thing! onions seem especially in need of having evening slumber.

[liminal-space.livejournal.com]

i love plants and plant shopping, too!!!!! i'm in the processing narrowing down the things i want to get, because there's just NO WAY i can do everything i want to. :( hopefully next year we'll have some greenhouse situation so i can start seeds easier.

re: watercolors. i AM trying. and not doing well. you'd think it'd be easy but NOOOOOOOOOOO. i'm still enjoying just playing with color, so that makes it LOOK like i'm doing art, when in all actuality i'm just farting around.

[cerezamarrero.livejournal.com]

No worries...I'm not comfortable either, though I do at times post my less cringe-y work. lol I'm not an artist either, though I am a creative. My daugther--she's totally an aritst in all senses. Me? Nah. Not so much. But I do some cool things on occasion that are artsy-cratfty. And as far as the green/brown thumb...I'm an olive green thumb. I prefer the herb gardens though where I don't have to strain my back and can do an herb garden on my back patio. ;)