Slacker!

Yeah, that's me. After the flurry of productivity during August, I became the laziest slug on the planet. I even gave in and planted store-bought seedlings in the garden after taking so long to plant seeds that I overshot the prime weeks. The shame! Now, here we are just shy of the start of November with nothing in particular on the slate except watering a bunch of cheater's lettuce and broccoli and vaguely wondering what magical amendment my soil needs to keep everything from dying halfway to full growth yet again.

The interesting thing is that I don't have anything that I have to do. The things that need to be done get done. I go to work, the house is reasonably clean, all living creatures get fed and clothed. I even got rid of creatures so I would have less to look after, because it was driving me batty. I'm talking about the rest of my time, and the issue of whether time spent doing "nothing" is wasted or not.

On one hand, there's the "less is more" argument--that by not filling every moment with projects, one can experience the actual moment more completely instead of thinking toward the next and the next and the next. Now, ask me if I spend time being that aware of the moment. Eh, not so much.

On the other hand, there is the growing awareness that life is pretty ding-a-danged short, and I shouldn't waste time failing to learn Mandarin and how to design a website and shoe a horse before it's proverbially and literally too late. Why I think I should do those things or other things like them, however, I have no idea.

And on the third hand, there is that streak of busyness encoded in my DNA from all those Puritan, mercantilish, pre-America ancestors, for whom a minute wasted was nothing but a shilling thrown down a well. Everyone thinks puritanical strictness was about offending the gods, but my genes know better, and they're mighty cranky about my lack of productivity right now despite their total silence on the subject of "you have a better idea?"

Sometimes I get the feeling that if I bought a convertible and maybe one of those Italian horn necklaces and took up SCUBA and just happened to have the XY chromosome combination, everyone would smirk and nod knowingly and call this a mid-life crisis. But I'm XX for good, I already know how to dive, those necklaces look lame, and convertibles are hell with hair like mine.

So I guess like any good post-Puritan woman, I'll get on to getting on with it. Eventually. Whatever "it" is.

Adieu, mes chers poulets!

It's true, Lucy and Ethel are off to a better place. No, not that one, where their molecules get all mixed into the great scrambled egg of the universe. We are ending our backyard chicken experiment and sending them to a nice home in the country. The person adopting them has a variety of poultry out in rural Florida that can free range over an acre. Our girls will have more company (maybe even that of an attractive rooster, nudge nudge) and can get out of the coop and back to their beloved free-roaming, bug-gobbling ways. We cooped them permanently early this year when we realized we could never win the chicken vs. garden war. For all their teeny tiny brains, the girls were remarkably persistent and pretty ingenious in the pursuit of our produce. Now, we've had a number of altercations involving what we think are feral cats getting into the coop late at night (there are bazillions of them here in the urban hood). It could also be young raccoons or rats. Who knows? But, the ongoing cost and stress of trying to create an animal-proof coop that still keeps the girls happy is proving to be more than the benefit of keeping them. Considering that Jeff is now rarely eating eggs and Jared isn't here often enough for us to keep ahead of the egg curve, we had to admit that this experiment has run its course. We learned a great deal, that's for sure.

The girls are sweet and very successful at doing their chicken thing, and we made sure they're going to a good home where they'll be treated very well, if not spoiled rotten. And why not? When you think about what a chicken manages to do with that whole egg-laying thing, they deserve a little spoiling. Consider, oh female readers, that you would have to produce something like a 4-pound baby every 28 hours for two to three years to replicate the feat of these little laying machines. The mind boggles at the thought. We certainly have a new appreciation and understanding for where at least some of our food comes from, and in this disconnected, pre-packaged, styrofoam-cartoned 21st century world of ours, that's a precious thing.

Anyway, while we're very sad to lose them, we're happy to report that the Saturday Morning Market kicks back up this weekend. If we're lucky, the egg vendor will return and we can continue to have a few better-than-grocery-store eggs from happy, free hens even without our backyard girls.

Alors, bonne chance et bonne vie, chers poulets, et merci bien!

Green Things

Things are starting to look green in the backyard these days, as gardening gets off to a start here in the south. Remember my little cuke babies in the previous post? Two weeks later, they're looking pretty good. I'll call them cuke tweens, since they're thinking about going all hormonal and flowering, but haven't quite gotten there yet. This is our first year growing from seed only and, so far, I'm pretty pleased. It may take longer, but the cukes at least look much better than the ones that grew from Bonnie starts last year. I have also discovered that starting seeds in little pots is totally unnecessary in our climate. The peat pots just get moldy in our atmosphere, while seeds sown directly into the garden spring up in no time at all. More lessons learned—love it!

In addition to the garden plants, our currently-potted key lime tree (a gift from Jeff's parents) has lime babies on it! Three so far. Here's a game: can you find the two wee baby limes in the second key lime tree photo? It's just like the hidden picture puzzle in Highlights Magazine, only you don't have to go to an overly-cheery dentist's office and use the magazine to distract yourself from the bloody horror that awaits you beyond the giraffe-appliqued door. Such good times we had! Click to enlarge the photo if you're as blind as I am. No judgment.

Lots else going on here, including hours of studying by Jeff and Jared alike, and hours of puttering on my part. I have now been to two sewing classes and have successfully produced one French-seamed pillowcase (for Jared) and one fully functional tote bag (for me). Pleasing, to say the least, to produce something useful. I have always loved fabrics and am slowly working up to the ability to use them to make things. Very exciting! I can also see that a tight rein will need to be held on that enthusiasm, lest we drown in piles of expensive, unsewn fabrics here at the Handyhouse.

And speaking once again of plants, let a recent experience serve as a lesson to all of you who order flowers and living plants for others over the internet. Jeff's parents sent me a bonsai for my birthday. "Awesome," thought I, upon seeing the box. I've never had one and would delight in figuring out some freakish shape for it. Or not, as the case may be, since the shape it had already chosen was "Dessicated Greyish-Green Blob." I'm as postmodern as the next person, but this seemed a little too deconstructivist, even for me. Jeff's dear mother, however, upon hearing of this topiary travesty, laid down some Hoosier smack on the supplier for sending an already-dead plant. Honestly, I have no trouble killing them myself. They don't need to help. Lo and behold, a new starter bonsai arrived today. Here's a side-by-side comparison and a second game for you: spot the bad bonsai. Go on, see if you can tell!

What we did on our summer staycation

Last week, Jeff and I took the week off together and stayed home and had a great time doing, well, stuff. Jeff read and studied and wrote and actually finished his current online college course a week in advance. This particular course crams 12 regular semester weeks into 7 or so, so that was quite an accomplishment. So proud! If you have questions about the progress of western civilization up to the time of the Renaissance, you now have your go-to guy. Other than that, it was mostly staying home and doing things in a fairly non-stressed way. The weather has been weird and wet and stiflingly hot, a typical August for Florida, I suppose, so I stayed out of our totally unkempt yard except for tending my tiny garden starts. Can you believe it's almost time to garden again here? Circle of life and all that.





I painted the bathroom red. Home Depot calls it "Chianti," and how I wish I had that paint-sample-naming job! Jeff gently pushed me away from the grey family and suggested red, and it looks great with the white and black tile in there.


I also, after almost three months, finished the refinishing of the front door.


And instead of painting the office, which I now know would have been a nightmare, we got rid of an inadequate low bookshelf and bought a larger one with glass doors from the fine folk at IKEA. Two hours of assembly and one trip back to Tampa to replace one teeny, tiny, totally crucial screw later, it looks great. Re-arranged some furniture, covered some magnetic boards with coordinating fabrics (yeah, I used duct tape, so what?), and now we have a much more balanced, if impossible to photograph, space.


What else? Let's see. I read 400 pages of this, which is the second in a series and quite good:


I cooked. Pork tenderloin with mushroom and Calvados cream sauce, New England fish chowder and my very first Tarte Tatin from Julia Child's recipe. I let it go about 45 seconds too long, but it wasn't nearly as burnt as this lousy photo implies. And the photo certainly doesn't tell you how it tasted, which was jaw-droppingly good. Flour, butter, sugar, apples. Four simple ingredients turned into pure deliciousness through the chemical alchemy brought on by heat. I never fail to be amazed by the everyday miracles we encounter and so often fail to appreciate. Sure sure, a guy landed a plane on a river and saved everyone or it rained frogs in Kansas, but have you tasted this??


We watched movies. "District 9" was excellent. "Milk" was quite good. "Watchmen" was a very disappointing bore of bores. And "Cosmos" always made an excellent background for my other major staycation project.

I knitted my very first sweater. No, really, a whole sweater, with sleeves that are four inches too long and everything! The whole thing is about a size too big, which goes to show that maybe you shouldn't guess how big your body is before you choose your knitting pattern variation. It's bulky but perfect for lounging around the house on a chilly day. Clearly, my seam-sewing needs some practice but, hey, I knitted an entire, wearable, non-embarrassing sweater! Another little everyday miracle.

I'm sure we did other things in our seven days together, but that rounds up the big stuff. Good times! Here's hoping everyone had a jolly and productive summer vacation, too. This weekend we're back to the school year pattern, and so it goes.

Virtual Realization

Whillikers, it's been a while since I posted! It was a busy June and July, since we had Jared for six weeks straight this summer. Good times had by all, and Jared learned some great tips at fishing camp that he and Jeff should be able to put to good use. We also had a great time up at the Beckers' place in North Carolina! With all said and done, I can just say kudos to all full-time parents out there, because wow.

I confess I've also been spending time playing The Sims 3. It's fun, but it creates a certain obsessive behavior in me that can be very, very time-consuming. So much for quitting World of Warcraft, which I was rarely playing when I cancelled my subscription. I just replaced it with something I now play A LOT. Which leads to a recent realization: my virtual Sim people are leading more fulfilling lives than I am. Seriously, they cook, they garden, they play the guitar, they paint, they write, they work out, they go to the park and concerts and movies and the day spa, they chat and have friends over and flirt with their significant others and get appropriate amounts of sleep. They play video games, too, but they manage to get all of those other things done, as well. Thing is, I'm spending my time helping them do those many things instead of, oh, say, doing them myself. Doesn't that seem a bit...wrong? In fact, maybe a lot wrong?

Maybe it's the dog days of summer that were talking to me and telling me to take a break, but I'm now itching to do more. At the very least, I should give myself a real life at least as interesting as the one I encourage for my fake people. So, I'm back on the workout train after an overly long absence, thinking about freshening up the house with a repaint or two, am eagerly awaiting my seed shipment so I can get the garden up and running in August for the new growing year, plan to attend my first sewing class in a few weeks and may just have to suffer the fingertip pain and get the guitar back out. I swear, if I don't learn to play at least some chords and a simple song this year, I'm putting it on Craigslist on January 1. We've had them sitting there for at least three years, which is at least two years over the edge of reasonable learning delay. Use it or lose it, at least as far as my own guitar of the three that we have is concerned.

So, thanks, Sims, for reminding me how life ought to be lived. Video games are fine, but not at the expense of my own existence. Life is good, but it's also short.