But for chocolate - June 30, 2024

Before The Husband got out of bed yesterday, I had two hours in which to think up ways to spend the day.  After breakfast, when I asked if he had any plans, he said he needed to change the lawnmower blades and mow our yard and Nanny's yard.  As for me, I needed to go to the grocery store and to Big Lots and Tractor Supply, take some shoes to my aunt, and weed the vegetable garden.  

The trouble is, it's hot.  And humid.  And the mosquitoes, horseflies, and chiggers are on the warpath. Neither I nor The Husband was excited about outdoor chores.  In planning my day, I put weeding at the bottom of the list, intending to do it late in the afternoon.   

The little red tiller has been sitting in the yard ever since we brought it home from Son #2's house, two weeks ago.  We tried to crank it last Saturday, even using a power drill to turn the engine, but couldn't get it to run.  Son #2 said it had cranked for him after a few pulls.  Seeing it sitting out there yesterday, I decided to see if I could figure out why it wasn't cranking for us.  I dragged it onto the back porch (where there were fans running), and The Husband and spent about an hour fooling with it, but never got it to run.  It's getting fire.  It has gas and oil (though the oil looks really dark).  We have a spare carburetor, but by this time it was almost noon, and we both had other things to do.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been intending to drop off a pair of shoes at my aunt's house.  I bought these shoes online, and I ordered the wrong size.  My fault.  When I did the online return process, the company kindly said to just keep the shoes (they were cheap).  I queried family members and discovered that they would fit my aunt.  I needed to go see her, anyway, just to visit.  I would see my aunt, first, and then do the shopping/errands, and then come home and work in the garden.

So about 1:00, I hit the road.  Visited with my aunt and uncle for a long time.  One of their daughters dropped by as I was about to leave.  After chatting with her for a bit, I went about my errands.  

On the way to town, it occurred to me that there was a problem with my plan.   

The sole purpose of the planned Big Lots run was to get a bag of dark chocolate-covered pistachios and cranberries.  (OMG.  These things...!  Fortunately, it only takes a few to hit the spot.)  If I were to go to Big Lots first, the chocolate would melt while I was grocery shopping.  I could not allow that to happen.  (The smooth, shiny spherical-ness is part of the joy of eating them.)  But if I did the grocery shopping first, my frozen foods would thaw.  Since buying the chocolate was not imperative (I can do it next week), I nixed it from my list.  I was only going to Tractor Supply to window-shop hose carts, so I nixed that, too, and drove straight to the grocery store when I got to town.

Conveniently, there's a liquor store attached to the grocery store.  I've been wanting a bottle of jalapeno-flavored tequila, so I went to the liquor store first.  The only jalapeno tequila they had also had cucumber flavoring in it.  Though I wasn't keen on the cucumber part, I bought it, and at the grocery store, I picked up a few things that I thought might do well in a cucumber-jalapeno margarita (but forgot the limes, damn it).

It was pushing 4:00 when I got home.  The Husband had not changed the lawnmower blades - still too hot.  He helped me bring in and put away the groceries and went back to his ukulele play-along video.  I mixed up two experimental margaritas with the new tequila.  I used fizzy lime-flavored mineral water for the base.  The only orange liqueur I had was blue curacao; in it went.  

A blue margarita is just wrong.

The whole margarita was wrong.  

We drank them, anyway.

I'm still not sure about the cucumber part.

Anyway . . . . 

We never got around to the rest of our chores.  

I was in bed by 10.  Before I went to sleep, I noticed that the new A/C unit was LOUD - roaring, sort of - but I attributed it to just being a different noise than what I'm used to.  At 2:00, I woke up to bumping sounds.  The Husband was cranking up the box fan.  The new A/C had gone out.

<sigh>

* * * * * * * * 

I'm sitting here looking at the little red tiller, still on the back porch.  This would be a great time to use it, if it would run, as Nanny just left for church (she toots the horn as she goes by).  Should I install the new carburetor and see if it will crank, or get busy with the hoe while Nanny is gone?  

I wanted to change the oil before the new carburetor goes on, but I don't have any oil.  Looks like the hoe is the winner, if I want to work right now.

But it rained last night.  The garden is probably too wet to work.

Maybe it's a good day to paint.

Shooting Hooky - June 28, 2024

It's not really "shooting hooky" if you're not at work for a valid reason and you've let everyone know, right?

I'm home today, waiting for the A/C repairmen.  They've got to tear the A/C vent/ducts/guts/thing-a-ma-bob out of the attic and replace the outside unit.  It's supposed to be 90+ degrees today.  They'll have to turn off the working unit (we have two), so it will get hotter than the dickens in the whole house.  It'll be hotter than the dickens on the porch, too, but there's a fan right next to my worktable, so I'll survive.

So, what to do today while I'm waiting?   Paint?  Work in the yard?

The vegetable garden could use some maintenance.  Yesterday, I checked on everything and was pleasantly surprised to find squash and purple hull peas that will be ready in a few days.  The pepper plants have peppers on them.  We're a long way from a ripe tomato, but they are growing.  The purple hull peas we planted last week have sprouted.  Looks like every one of them came up!

And the cabbages are putting out again!  You may remember that worms ate our cabbage and broccoli plants down to their skeletons.  I stripped the plants of their leaves and left them where they stood, wondering if they would re-grow.  Yesterday, there were little tufts of greenery coming out of the center.  I can't tell, yet, if they intend to make leaves down the stalk.  

The community garden is coming along, too - getting green tomatoes on the vines.  I think I will start some winter squash seeds and get them in the ground pretty soon.

That would be a good thing to do while I'm waiting on the A/C guys, wouldn't it?

* * * * * * *

I did plant some pumpkin seeds and tried to do a little weeding around the back yard.  The mosquitoes nearly ate me alive, and when they started swarming my face, I headed for the porch.  Combined with the bites I got last night in the garden, there's not an exposed spot on me that isn't itching.  

The A/C guys are in the attic.  They are not the same guys that came to do the estimate.  They seem a bit surprised by what they must do to replace the old unit.  It's probably best to just stay on the porch until summoned!

* * * * * * * 

About mid-morning, I put some EM-1 on the tomatoes and pulled up some grass in our garden.  This is prime time for grass-pulling, as the ground is wet, but I didn't get far before I couldn't see for the sweat in my eyes.  It was HOT!  Back to the porch again.  

Fire ants have built another nest at the edge of the garden.  I put some bait on it yesterday and watered it.   The water disturbed the nest, and ants came pouring out.  Today, they were in heaps on top of the mound.  Some of them were moving. I squirted them just a little bit with some Sevin before I considered that maybe the live ones were still transporting the bait into the mound, and maybe I should let them.

The A/C guys have gone, and there's cool air pouring out of the bedroom vents.  Hallelujah.  Maybe we'll sleep better tonight.

I was hard at work by 7 this morning, finishing up Year 5.  By 2:00, I'd emptied one box of Year 6 records and sorted them into piles.  I could have worked at it a little longer, but there were other "official" work duties I needed to do.  

The tomatoes in my personal garden had a few baby tomato worms on them this weekend, so I figured I ought to check for worms/bugs in the community garden plot. Didn't see any, and didn't spray any insecticide - don't want to use it if I can keep ahead of the worms by picking them off when they show up.  But I haven't been checking the community garden EVERY day, and a tomato worm can strip a plant in a heartbeat, so I need to step up my surveillance.  I watered the plot while I was there.  About an hour later, the garden manager sent out a text blast that said they were running the sprinklers.

We finally - FINALLY - took the Wrangler to the transmission shop.  It has needed attention for a couple of years.  The automatic transmission does fine EXCEPT when I stop with the Jeep in Drive, such as at a red light or stop sign.  It acts like it wants to GO FORWARD, and when my foot on the brake prevents it from going forward, the engine goes dead.  All the rest of the time when I'm driving, it does fine.  I've been shifting into neutral at red lights to keep this from happening.  It's getting old.  The Husband has been playing telephone tag with the repair shop for two weeks.  I got the right guy on the phone on the first try, and he told me to bring it on in.  So we did.  He predicts the problem is the torque converter.  I have no clue what that is, except the guy assured me it's part of the transmission.  Will it cost more to fix it than the Jeep is worth?

! - June 24, 2024

Axel went home last night about 6:00.

YAY!

After he left, I vacuumed up a full dog's worth of hair.

We were not awakened by howling at 4 a.m.

I was at the office by 7:30 and set right to work on finishing the Year 5 alphabetizing, but I was aching all over and had a headache.  Bending over the table to sort the piles of paper strained every muscle that I had aggravated over the weekend (which was most of them).  About 12:30, I gave it up and came home, leaving the M-N-Os for tomorrow.  Haven't been worth a plug nickel since.

Phlox week - June 23, 2024

Our vegetable garden needs weeding, and there are purple hull pea seeds on the back porch table that need to be planted.  Before the seeds can be planted, I need to run the tiller down the rows and rake out the grass.

It's supposed to be 95 degrees today.  The best time to do the tilling and weeding is RIGHT NOW.  But, as you may remember, the garden is down at Nanny's house, and it is not quite 7 a.m.  If I were to go to the garden now, I'd wake up everybody on the hill.  So I will wait until Nanny leaves for church.  Anybody who isn't up by 10:30 needs to be up, anyway.  ;)

Noises from the kitchen signal that The Husband is up.  (I've been up since 4:30, when the dog howled.)  He needs to be up and moving.  We have a yucky job to do today.

The air-conditioning unit in our bedroom went kaput a couple of weeks ago.  We called a repairman; it's beyond fixing.  Both the inside unit and the outside unit have to be replaced.  The inside unit is in the attic and will have to be brought down in pieces.  Our attic is full of junk and needs to be rearranged enough to give the installers room to work.  This is a chore I dread.  (I'd planned to leave it for my kids to do after I die.)  The stairs are the pull-down kind.  The attic is not fully floored.  All kinds of perils.  We need to get at it before the day gets any hotter.  It'll probably be 10:00 before we get started, which is about the time I need to go to the garden.

I may not have much "oomph" left for the garden.

Also, I need to work on the Wrangler again.  The floor needs another scrubbing before the carpet goes back in.  The fenders need a back-to-black treatment. 

 And the radio won't play anything but static.  

Back in the winter, I noticed that my antenna was gone.  I bought a replacement, but it didn't solve the problem.  I bought another replacement yesterday, but it didn't solve the problem, either.  The built-in cassette player works.  Evidently, the radio is just not getting the signal.  I took out the glove box and looked at the wires. The Wrangler's original owner did some monkeying around with the electronics.  He put a 10-disc CD player behind the back seat and installed a sweet over-head speaker system under the roll bar and ran the wires under the carpets.  The wires culminate in a mass behind the glove box.  I don't know what is what, but it seems like everything is plugged in correctly.  I checked some fuses, they all looked ok.  I'm stumped, but I'd like to get it fixed, because I'm about sick of this one cassette I found in the storage well.

It's phlox week, the only week of the year when my yard is kind of pretty.  Here are some pics from  my morning stroll.

Bee balm, yarrow, and lavender along the driveway are all in decline.  Ignore the upside-down boat, please.  

"Stump garden" - in progress.

Shady stuff between the porch and the patio.  

This is the only hydrangea that bloomed this year.  The big blue hydrangea in the previous pic got cold-nipped in March and didn't bloom.

P.S.:

We tackled the attic around 8:30.  Hauled out six big garbage bags of paperback books and other debris that never should have gone to the attic in the first place.  As soon as we quit in the attic, I went to the garden.  The Husband showed up a little later and helped with the tilling and the weeding.  Two new rows of peas in the ground.

I should have tackled the Wrangler floorboard as soon as we got back from the garden.  It was 12:30 and HOT.  The Husband said, "Wait until it cools off to start that."  The problem with waiting until it cools off is that's when the mosquitoes attack.  Nevertheless, he talked me right out of the idea.  Instead of bleaching the Jeep, I showered and did two loads of laundry.  Might spend the rest of the afternoon painting.

Until it cools off.

Hot Old Lady - June 22, 2024

It was hot today.

But not at 5 a.m., when the asshole dog woke me up with his howling.  By 6, I'd cleaned up a water puke.  Thank goodness he did it on the porch (where he gets his water), so all I had to do was hose it away.  

After he puked, I took him in the house and brought my coffee out to the porch and TRIED to play my morning word game, but the dog wanted out.  Then he wanted in.  Then he wanted back out.  By the time The Husband got up, I was ready to throttle the dog.  

But I have to cut him (the dog) some slack.  He's old, and he's out of his routine and probably missing his family and his king-sized doggie bed.  At my house, when we're in the room, he sleeps on the cold, hard floor, which probably doesn't help his arthritis. (When I come home from work, he's laid out on the couch with his head on a pillow.  It's a tough life over here.)

At 10:00, we had to go pick up The Husband's truck from a repair shop.  Some sensor went out.  We drove up there in the Wrangler with the top up but the windows off.  The Husband said it smelled musty to him, and we ought to take out the carpet and lay it out to dry.  This suggested started a chain of events that just now paused for the day.

We took the carpets out, and I doused them with Mr. Clean, scrubbed them with a brush, and jetted them with the water hose.  They hadn't been out in years.  Underneath them, there was a little moldy stuff, but even more worrisome was RUST in the front passenger floor pan.  I scrubbed on it with a wire brush and vacuumed the debris.  It's not close to rusting through, but it has eaten some paint and pitted the metal in a couple of places.  My brother-in-law is an autobody man and lives just down the road from me.  I texted him and asked him to stop by here and look at it, and tell me what to do.  An hour later, he rolled up in his Jeep, got out, left it running.  I showed him the rust.  He bent down and scratched at it a couple of times, and said, "Yeah, it's rusting.  Drive the m*th*rf*ck*r."  And acted like he was just going to get back in his Jeep and roll on.

I said, "WAIT!"

In the end, he did concede that there was some stuff that I could spray on to remove at least some of the rust, and some other stuff I could spray on to retard further rusting.  I went out looking for rust remover, didn't find the stuff I wanted, but bought another brand and tried it.  Except in those two nasty spots, it did a pretty good job, but it took some paint with it. I am going to work on those nasty spots again tomorrow.  And then I'm going to tackle the moldy stuff in the back floor (which is partly leaf debris) with some bleach water.

TGIF - June 21, 2024

On this day, 19 years ago, I became a grandmother.  :)

* * * * * * * 

Thank goodness this work week is over.  I worked hard but did not get Year 5 completely done.  Monday, I left early to go to a funeral.  Wednesday, personal and other office errands ate up some of my time.  I really couldn't work later than usual any day because there was a big-ass Rottweiler at home that needed to pee.

Year 5 is mostly done, but I still have two "big letters" - H and M - to do.  They brought down Years 6 and 7 today.  Hopefully, I can get Year 6 unboxed and at least partially sorted Monday.  

I'm tired.  

For the past two nights in a row, the dog has howled.  Not a high-pitched, screaming howl - a low, mournful rumble.  He may be doing it in his sleep, for all I know;  by the time I open doors and get to the living room, he's had time to hear me and stand up.

Two more days, and his parents will come for him.  

He'll probably be happier about that than I will be.

Then I will have to vacuum up the dog hair.  Not looking forward to that job.

But I am looking forward to a margarita in about 30 minutes.

Check you later.

Life with Axel - June 20, 2024

We're on Day 4.5 of Life with Axel.

He's an old dog, set in his ways.  I both feel sorry for him and want to throttle him.

Last night at midnight, I heard a soft-ish, mournful howl.  We've been keeping our bedroom door shut at night we don't want him in our bed.  I got up to check on him.  He was just standing in the middle of the living room floor, howling.  I asked him what he wanted.  He just stared at me.  I thought, Screw you, dog, and went back to bed.  At 4 a.m., The Husband heard him howling, got out of bed, let him outside, gave him a snack.  Shoot, he wouldn't do that for ME at 4 a.m.!  ;)

Project Year 5 is coming along.  I hope to finish it tomorrow, but will have to go in early, work through lunch (I do those things, anyway), AND work a little later in the day.  Working later tomorrow is a problem; tomorrow is margarita night, and the margarita cannot be delayed (much).  

There are probably 10 more years of records to do.  At the current rate of 1 year per week, I will be what? - middle of September? - finishing.  Hopefully, the volume really will get smaller as the years recede.  But The Husband and I have another 3-day road trip in July, and something else planned for August, so that will cut into my work time.

When all of the Project Years are finished, I move on to a different set of records.  These records are stored in an unheated, un-air-conditioned place.  At first, I will bake, then I will freeze by the time the job is done.  Something else to whine about, eh?

I *could* retire in October.

Might do it.

Might not.

A truly yucky day :( - June 17, 2024

I've had worse days than this.

It started before 6 a.m.  Axel the Rottweiler is spending the week with us.  

He does what he wants.  Fortunately, most of the time, he's a pretty laid-back dog.  Speaks English, to some extent.  Queries with his face.

So I got up at 6 and let his big ass out to pee.  After he peed and sniffed around awhile, I said, "Good boy.  Let's go in."  

He didn't want to.  

I went inside to pour a cup of coffee while Axel finished his business.  I'd made the coffee and set the timer the night before.  I'd poured in 8 cups of water, but when I picked up the pot, there were only about two cups in it, and there were grounds in it.  I raised the lid on the coffee-maker.  The basket was lipping full of water.  What the hell?

Turned out, I'd washed the coffee carafe - but not its lid - in the dishwasher the night before and had forgotten to put lid on the carafe when I made the coffee.  When I put the lid on, the coffee began to drip.  I went outside to find Axel.  

He was nowhere in sight.  I called, I whistled.  No Axel.  I was about to go inside when I heard a lapping noise.  The sound led me behind the shed, where Axel had found a bucket of old motor oil.  There was a patty of leaves on top of the oil, and water floating on top.  He was drinking the water.  I about had a stroke.

I ran to the water hose and filled up his water bowl and called him over.  He drank the whole thing and immediately barfed on the sidewalk.  I hosed it off and coaxed him onto the back porch, where he barfed again.  Hosed that off, too.  Finally, when it seemed he was done puking, I led him inside, strained the coffee, and got dressed for work.

Got there by 7, where Project Year 5 awaited.  I worked until 1, when I had to go to a funeral.  My first cousin, one with whom I grew up, died last week.  So sad.  His parents, now in their early 80s, are beyond words in grief.

The funeral seemed to last forever.  

As soon as it was over, rain started pouring from the sky.

I did not go to the cemetery.   

Drove home in the rain.  As I parked my car, I glanced over at my Wrangler, parked in the driveway with a canvas cover over the top.  We'd picked up this cover at the Jeep rally last month.  Week before last, when the weather was warm, I took the back windows out of the Wrangler and lowered the top for a few days.  When rain threatened, we'd raised the top and put the cover on for the first time. This weekend, I took the cover off and dropped the top again and ran my errands in the Wrangler.  Last night, we put the cover on, but didn't raise the top.  This morning, I missed the weather news because I was chasing a dog and cleaning up puke, and I did not know it was going to rain (I should have known it would rain because I watered the garden yesterday).  By the time I got home from the funeral, so much rain had puddled on the Wrangler cover that it was sagging - BIG - over the front seats.   

Crawling inside the Jeep and attempting to push the bulge upward to empty the water down the sides of the Jeep was a bad idea.  When I pushed upward on the bulge, all the water went straight into the front passenger floorboard.  I raised up the carpet, pulled out the drain plug, and tried to swoosh out some of the water, while rain poured down my back.   It's pushing 5:00, and there's a dog in the house that probably needs a potty break.  I leave off on the swooshing to go let the dog out.  

The dog bolted out the door when I opened it.  While he peed on my flowers, I went back to put up the Wrangler top and put the cover back on.  

It is not a 1-person job, but it's on.  Sort of.

At least the dog didn't give me much trouble about coming in from the rain.

He shook off in the living room.

My BFF has a big birthday coming up in a few days.  I picked up a little present for her last month while we were on vacation, which I intended to mail to her with a hand-painted birthday card.  

Here's the kind of crap that foils my best-laid plans:

I started the birthday card two weekends ago.  On the front, I painted a pushcart full of flowers.  Instead of sketching a side view of the cart, I drew it angled a little toward the viewer.  At this angle, the wheel is no longer a perfect circle to a viewer, it's an oval.  I must have spent two hours trying to get the wheel right.  At some point, I said ENOUGH! and started to paint.  Long story short, the painting sucked.  I intend(ed) to re-do it.

A few days later, another idea sprang to mind.

My BFF likes birds, and she likes coffee.  I could paint some birds around a coffee mug.  I have a sublimation printer, sublimation paper, and a heat-press machine with a mug attachment.  It's on.

I went right to work painting birds.  I did two paintings - one that was a bunch of little multi-colored birds on a limb, and one that was 3 big, fat bluebirds singing their heads off - and asked The Husband which style he liked better.  He liked the bluebirds.

I took the bluebird painting to the scanner.  I'd painted it on 9" x 12" paper.  Well, guess what?  My scanner bed is slightly smaller than that. One or both birds would lose a piece of its tail if I trimmed it to fit.  

Last weekend, I cut the bluebird painting apart and used the pieces as gift tags for my granddaughters' birthday presents.  They thought their tags were so cool.

That was a week ago.  

Yesterday, I did another bluebird painting.  I wasn't happy with some parts of it, tried to alter it, and made it worse.  Meanwhile, I discovered that the scanner on my sublimation printer was actually slightly larger than the scanner on my other printer (which I'd tried to use to scan the original bluebirds).  The original bluebirds would fit on the sublimation printer scanner!

Oh, wait . . . I cut them up, didn't I?

*sigh*

The birthday is this week.

In about an hour, when Nanny leaves for church, I'm going to the garden to plant a few more tomatoes and do a little weeding and/or fertilizing.  I bought another pound of purple hull pea seeds that I might plant in the remaining grassy strip, if I have the energy to do it.

Then I'm going to come home, take a shower, stir up a fruity drink, and paint bluebirds.

One.

More.

Time.

Pile Reduction - June 14, 2024

This has been one hell of a week.  

Monday morning, they brought down Year 4 records AND Year 5 records.  I'd hoped to knock out Year 4 by Thursday and do the first sort on Year 5 today.  Well, that didn't happen.  Year 4 records, which were presumed to be less voluminous than previous years, was a MONSTER.  It turned out that, though there may have been fewer reports, there were DUPLICATES of many reports - and sometimes more than one copy.  I did not realize this until I began to alphabetize the A-B-C stacks, by which time I had made additional copies of some things.  No wonder the stacks were immense!

Year 4 is finished, all but T-V-X-Y-Z, which I can knock out in an hour Monday morning.

I stopped by the community garden on my way home.  Pulled up the remaining lettuce, washed the dirt off the roots, and donated it to the food pantry.  I also fertilized the tomatoes, flowers, and herbs again. I left one HUGE, bolted lettuce plant in the garden.  It's about 3 feet tall, and it's about to bloom.  Maybe the blooms will attract pollenators to our plot, and it will be interesting to see what happens with the seeds it throws when the blooms die.  Will we have lettuce from them this fall?  

The okra has sprouted in our home garden.  Worms are eating the cabbage and broccoli down to skeletons.  Yesterday I started smashing the worms between the Swiss cheese leaves, but it was disgusting and I finally gave up and just broke the leaves off and trampled them with my big crocs.  The remining stalks have little leaf shoots on them.  It would be cool if the cabbage worm moths have laid their eggs and moved on, giving the plants a chance to re-grow without worms bugging them.  We'll see.

  

*Snarl* - June 10, 2024

I am tired and more than a little grouchy tonight.

I was at work just after 7 this morning, expecting to jump right in and get 'er done .  Thursday afternoon before I left work, I'd asked them to bring down the Year 4 documents.  They were not there Friday morning.  Before I left work Friday, I asked them again to bring down Year 4.  They were not there this morning, either.  It was after 9:00 before I could actually start working.  Year 4 is a mess.  I did not even finish the first sort into A-B-C piles.  And there are two more boxes I haven't even opened.

I left work at 4:00.   My back and feet were (and still are!) aching. 

And there was dinner to consider.

No way I was cooking. No way.  

I went by the grocery store and bought some ready made food.

And now I'm going to bed with a Cadfael book.

I did not sleep well last night.  

At the Mexican restaurant, where they usually let us split the "2-for-1 special" margaritas, The Husband got a wild hair and ordered two more drinks.  I drank about half of my second margarita and poured the rest of it into my sister-in-law's glass for her to finish.  Nevertheless, I was not worth a plug nickel when we got home, and I went straight to bed.  At midnight, after a lot of squirming, I crawled into another bed so The Husband could get some rest.

I woke up at 1, at 2, at 3, 4, and 5 - no particular ailment, just restless - and finally got up at 6.  

We were to leave at 8 for the community garden dedication ceremony.  By that time, I'd been to the bathroom FOUR TIMES.  It appeared that the crisis had passed, and I wasn't worried about going to the ceremony.  The Husband was a little worried, though; his tummy had done some rumbling, too.  We wondered if it was something we ate (or drank).  But we went on to town.

It was a nice ceremony.  There was coffee, and cookies, and lemonade.  Gardeners swapped shared techniques and gave away plants.  The garden manager and The New Boss made short speeches, recognizing people and local businesses whose donations made the garden possible.  

Let me tell you, most of the other garden plots put ours to shame.  I have only recently pulled up the sugar snap peas and replaced them with smallish tomato plants, other plots are already picking vegetables and donating them to the food bank.  I am hoping that our tomatoes will kick in later, when others have fizzled out, to keep a steady supply going.

Next to the garden is my favorite breakfast restaurant, and while The Husband was loaded up on margaritas at the Mexican restaurant last night, he volunteered out of the blue to take me to breakfast at this place.  As soon as the speech-making was over, we shot across the grass and ordered gravy and biscuits, a rare treat for us these days.

The Husband had to seek out the bathroom before we left the restaurant.  I was fine.

When we got home, I set to work on the two birthday cakes for The Granddaughters' birthday party tomorrow.  I made two 9" round cakes, and put them in the top oven, and then made one 9 x 13 cake and put it in the bottom oven.  I set two timers on the stove and came out to the porch to double-check the frosting recipe.  On the way out the back door, I hollered at Siri to set another timer for 15 minutes.  As I went out the door, I saw that the first timer had four minutes left - just enough time for me to check the recipe.  Since the oven beeper is a puny little beep, I left the back door cracked so I could hear it.  

I had no sooner sat down at my table when I realized that I had to go potty.  NOW.

The Husband, who cannot hear the high-pitched beeper tone, was standing on the back porch.  As I sprinted for the bathroom, fearing that I wasn't going to make it in time, I yelled out some instructions:

Watch the oven.  Test the cakes with a toothpick to make sure they're done.  Listen for the second timer. 

I didn't make it in time.

If have raised an infant, you have dealt with the diaper from hell - the shit-up-the-back situation.

That's what happened to me.  

So,

I'm in the bathroom in the front hallway, sitting on the toilet, trying to peel off my nasty clothes and rinse them in the sink, when I hear Siri's alarm go off.  The Husband can hear that alarm, so I kept on with what I was doing, and it was disgusting.  

And the alarm kept going. And going.  I hollered, "CHECK THE OTHER CAKE," but The Husband did not answer and I did not hear any oven door sounds.

And, there I was, dressed only from the waist up, and far too toxic to go anywhere near the oven, and the alarm just going and going . . . .

When I'd cleaned myself up enough to leave the room (I thought), I went looking for The Husband.  He was on the back porch, with the door closed, and hadn't heard the obnoxious phone alarm.  I yanked the door open and yelled, "SEE ABOUT THE CAKE!" 

He came running in behind me, and caught a glance of my shirt-tail when I turned my back to him, and said, "Ooooo, you're gonna need another shower."

Evidently, biscuits and gravy for breakfast was not a good idea for either of us.

After I'd disinfected myself and the bathroom, I took the round cakes out of the pan.  They stuck and cracked when I turned them out.  I guess I'll mortar them back together with frosting and move on.

Noon Report - Fertilizing - June 7, 2024

On my way to work this morning, I stopped by the community garden to do some weeding and fertilizing.  Spiffing the plot up, you know, for tomorrow's ceremony.  ;)  

At work, it didn't take long to finish up the Year 3 alphabetizing.  While I was working, my daughter-in-law called to ask if she could bring their Rottweiler over to our house.  They had workers doing things with machinery in the front yard, and it was driving the dog apeshit.  I told her to take him on over.  When I finished my work, I went by their house, both to see the work and to pick up the dog, if they hadn't already taken him to my house. She had not taken the dog, so I volunteered to take him.

Have you ever tried to get an old, arthritic, 160-pound Rottweiler in the front seat of a Jeep Wrangler? 

My D-i-L took hold of his right hind leg, and I took hold of his left, and we managed to get his hind feet on the running board.  He took it from there, but we had to push. 

It was a tight squeeze.

While we were trying to get Axel in the front seat, his dog-mate, Buck the Pitt Bull, jumped in the back seat and would not get out.  My D-i-L tricked him out by offering him a ride in her car.  

I had the top down on the Wrangler and was a little worried that Axel would jump out or fall out.  He would not sit down and stood, wobbling sideways, with his nose out the window and his anus firmly lodged against my right shoulder, all the way home.

The first thing he did when he got out of the Jeep was pee on my flowers. 

When I said, "Ok, let's go inside," he ran right to the front door and just about broke it down trying to get in, like he lives here.  He ran straight to the kitchen; I sent him straight out to the back porch. Gave him a bowl of water.  Told him to lie down and behave.  He's snoozing now, snoring and moaning.  Too much excitement for one day, I reckon.

I left work so early because they had not brought down Year 4.  I guess I could've waited.....

Nah.

* * * * * * * * 

After Axel settled in, I told him to be a good boy and gathered up my gardening supplies.  I was already in the Jeep to drive down to Nanny's when I thought about what Axel might get into while I was gone.  There was an old bag of chocolate-covered dried cranberries on the kitchen table.  I went back in the house and put everything away.  Went back to the garden.  Fertilized the tomatoes.  Tilled up a row and planted the okra.  Mowed Nanny's back yard.  Came home to find a fast-food wrapper torn up in the floor.  No clue where he found it.  He may have learned to work the pedal that raises the kitchen garbage can lid.  If so, I'm surprised he didn't go back for the stale cinnamon rolls I tossed this morning.

I showered off the chiggers and dust and decided to shave my legs since I'll probably wear shorts to the community garden ceremony tomorrow.  This is impossible to do in the shower without hacking my skin to pieces, and my deep, soaking tub is a death trap for an old lady, so when the weather is warm, as it is today, I shave my legs in a big plastic bowl on the back porch, where I can actually see what I'm doing. 

As I was running water in the bowl, Axel jumped up and ran to the sink.  

"Thirsty, huh?"

I'd already given him some water when we first got home.  He would drink a gallon if his parents would let him, but they don't, because he drinks it fast and then pukes it up.  I ran a cup of water for him and poured it in his bowl on the porch.  He lapped it up, and then when I came outside with my bowl of warm water, he stuck his face in it.  I told him, "No!  Mine!"  He backed off, slobbering all down my leg, and when I stuck my foot in the bowl, he snorted and gave me a genuine WTF look, still dribbling slobber.   

If only he could talk, eh?

He's spending all of next week at my house, unless the kids' plans change.  I can hardly wait.  

Not.

  

To-Do List - June 6, 2024

I came verrrrry close to finishing project Year 3 today.  Everything is alphabetized except for U, V, Y, X, and Z, and those won't take 10 minutes to do.  They'll bring Year 4 tomorrow morning.  I may or may not tear into the boxes right away.  Other things need doing.

For one, I need to check the community garden.  The garden manager sent out a text today, asking that we gardeners get our plots clean and pretty for a dedication ceremony happening Saturday morning at 9.  Our plot was in pretty good shape when I checked it a couple of days ago.  It needs fertilizing, I think.  I'll do that tomorrow while they're bringing Year 4 boxes.

Granddaughters 1 and 3 have birthdays this month, and they'll be having a combined birthday party Sunday afternoon.  They have asked for an Orange Crush Cake.  Last year's cake almost ran out before everybody got some, so this year I'm making TWO cakes - the standard layer cake with cream cheese frosting and a sheet cake with a light Dream Whip frosting.  

I'm tired and achy from standing on my feet all day.  The recliner beckons.

EM-1 - June 4, 2024

This is just to remind myself that I dosed the community garden tomatoes and our personal tomatoes with EM-1 early this week.  It's an unopened bottle that I bought last year.  The expiration date is later this month.  Hopefully, it's still got a little "oomph."  

The ground in both gardens is soggy.  Some spots in our personal garden were standing in water when I drenched the tomato plants with the EM-1 on Sunday.  It rained the next day.  The community garden got its dose this morning.  It's raining now.  

Were the drenches a waste of time?  Maybe not.  It's supposed to be good for the soil, even if it didn't stay on the leaves for long.

That is, if the little critters in the bottle - whatever they are - don't drown.

* * * * * * * * 

Year 3 of The Project is moving slowly.  The documents in these boxes were rubber-banded together and have fused to the paper after 20 years in a hot attic.  I had to microwave some pages to peel them apart without ripping them.  And they were still sticky once they were separated.  I didn't know what else to do except cover the sticky places with clear tape so that they won't stick to anything else.  

When I left today, the documents were separated into piles, A - Z, and stacks A and B were alphabetized. Stack C was too big to tackle late in the afternoon, and my back had bent over the worktable for long enough, so I skedaddled.

Weekend Report - June 2, 2024

We've had a fairly quiet weekend.

I promised The Grandson that I would drive him to Game Stop Saturday morning and told him to text me when he was up and moving.  To my surprise, my text message alert sounded at 8:30 a.m., wondering if we were going out to breakfast or if he should eat at home.  Ordinarily, I would have already been up for two hours, but I had JUST rolled out of bed, myself, and wasn't keen on the idea of getting dressed and hitting the road so soon.  I told him to feed himself, and I'd pick him up about 10:30.  

The Husband decided to go with me.  We picked up the boy and headed to town.  I wanted to stop by the bakery, first, to get bread.  The Grandson's mouth watered over some sausage scones he saw on the counter. The Husband's mouth watered over some strawberry chess squares he saw in the display box.  I snagged a bag of sliced honey jalapeno bread and some Southern Greek Seasoning.  

At Game Stop, we bought The Grandson a gift card and high-tailed it to the community garden, where we needed to put up some tomato stakes.  The Husband and The Grandson took care of the stakes, while I planted a couple more tomatoes and some pollinator flowers.  

I came straight home and made a grilled jalapeno bread/cheese sandwich.  It was awesome. (I had it again this morning for breakfast with jalapeno jelly and sausage.  Mmmm.)

For the rest of the afternoon, I painted (watercolor) and embroidered and read.  Come dinner time, we heated up some spaghetti that really didn't need to live in the refrigerator for many more days.

Today has been more of the same - reading, embroidering, and painting.  

Not a bad weekend, eh?

Around 6 p.m., I decided to go to the garden to drench the tomato plants with some stuff I bought that's supposed to work miracles.  I'm not sure how much it's going to help, considering the ground is soggy, and there's more rain on the way tomorrow.  After that, I pulled some Virginia Creeper and poison ivy out of the flower beds, then hurried to the shower to wash off the chiggers and the plant juice.

If I can get to the community garden tomorrow before the rain gets there, I'll drench those plants, too.  The rain might wash it off, but it's supposed to be good for the soil, so maybe the rain won't matter.

Tomorrow, I start work on Year 3.