updates
For someone who used to lay claim to being something of a wordsmith, I certainly can't seem to find them sometimes. I'm no good with words for grief and loss. The kind of loss that a very dear friend of mine is experiencing is so intense that I can't find any words to give her. Maybe that's it, though, having been something of a wordsmith -- I am more acutely aware of the resonance of a word, and can't find any that are even close to the situation. The only thing I know how to do is wrap someone in my arms and listen-- try to draw some pain from them like a poultice.
I really wanted to get in my car last night to do just that. She and her family are in my thoughts today, all I can really do is send as much good, loving energy that way as I can.
****************
Things here are what they are. My grandmother has had some kind of seizure or something over the weekend, she was living in a nursing home. They still can't figure out if it was a stroke or what -- but they had to insert a pacemaker to regulate her heart. She conscious again, but Mom tells me she's raving and babbling -- before whatever it is happened, she was very cognizant and verbally understandable. So they're working on that.
The same weekend, my aunt had just come back from a short-notice trip to Johns Hopkins with heart trouble. She's had several bypass surgeries and a shunt (I think that's the right word) -- so another surgery, especially an emergency surgery, had us all holding our breath. But, she's home now, and recuperating, thankfully.
The weekend brought some reunions, too. We had dinner Saturday night with some very good friends that we'd not seen in a very long time -- they came over and I cooked a really interesting salt-crusted chicken, that, despite the ratio of 1 lb salt to 1 lb chicken, turned out not very salty and wonderfully tender and fragrant. Sunday, I had a friend from back in my highschool days stop by -- she'd located me on MySpace -- and it was absolutely great to see her. We chatted for a few hours. It would be great if we could get together again -- I think we've both changed in some very similar ways.
School is good. I love it, most of the time. Sometimes I think I have some mild form of Turrett's because my mouth has no "off" switch -- or well, it does, but often it doesn't work - especially in the classroom setting. And it's not profanity that comes out, it's some form of humor. *sigh* It's getting better though. I managed to quiet down yesterday, some.
Doug and I were supposed to finalize the closing on our house last week, transferring from the construction loan to the final mortgage. He finally went yesterday and did that. Friday was hell, though. Since we're not totally done, I wont' totally rant, but we're so incredibly frustrated and pissed off at our mortgage company that it's really turning into fury. They are just incredibly incompetant, and by the time we really discovered this, it was too late to really back out and go elsewhere. It's not just us, though, we're spoken to other folks in and around the business who've told us that what they've done to us is either illegal, or darned close -- at the very least unproffessional and incompetant. *sigh*
Oh, and we've had a rather large rotor tiller for about 2 weeks now, (18 inch rear tine tiller) and haven't been able to use it. The first weekend, we spent saturday on the phone with the tractor store trying to get it to go into gear. This was unsuccessful, so they sent someone out last week to fix it -- which was also unsuccessful. So now, this week sometime they'll be sending us a new one. We have to get two tills in by frost free in order to make the most of the growing season, it would be nice to get started!
We finally ordered seeds, and seedlings from Seeds of Change. Due to our tilling delays, I don't see much hope in starting too much indoors, they might get a bit unruly on me, like Erin's morning glories before I have somewhere to plant them. Doug has planted our rasperries and blackberries in the area that he and my brothers (and I - some) cleared of multi-flora over the past few weeks. Just beyond that will be our garden -- all 30' x 75' of it. We'll be cover-cropping about half of it with fava beans probably. I dunno though, looking at our seed order, we could use all of the room! Some of the seeds, like beans, greens, radishes, etc- you plant in succession so you don't have them all ripe, all at once. We also don't intent to plant huge amounts of any one veggie. This year is more about finding out what works -- so we have an assortment. My favorites are going to be to see how the San Marzano tomatoes, All-Blue potatoes, Black corn, Rosa Bianca eggplant work out (it's white and pink!), and moon and stars melon. I haven't even started on herbs, yet, and I love herbs with a passion. That's more of a "next-year" project, since I have an idea for an herb garden in an area that's not been cleared yet.
We've maybe lost our minds. In addition to these plants, I have some wax beans, turnips, mustard greens and luffa to plant:
LIVE, POTATO, ALL BLUE 2 LBS
LIVE, POTATO GERMAN BUTTERBALL 2 LBS
RADISH, GARDEN, CHAMPION
SPINACH, AMERICA
SUMMER SQUASH, COCOZELLE BUSH ZUCCHINI
SUMMER SQUASH, YELLOW CROOKNECK
WINTER SQUASH, SPAGHETTI
TOMATO, CHERRY, PEACEVINE
TOMATO, PASTE, ROMA
TOMATO, PASTE, SAN MARZANO
TOMATO, SLICING, YELLOW PERFECTION
TOMATO, SLICING, BRANDYWINE
BEETBERRY
BEAN, FAVA, SWEET LORANE - 5 LB.
BEAN INOCULANT
SEEDLING, MEDITERRANEAN SIX PACK
BEAN, BUSH, PAWNEE SHELL
BEAN, BUSH, BOUNTIFUL STRINGLESS SNAP
BEAN, BUSH, ROYAL BURGUNDY
BEAN, POLE, KENTUCKY WONDER
CORN, DAKOTA BLACK POPCORN
CORN, SWEET, STOWELLS
LETTUCE, CRISPHEAD, ROUGE DE GRENOBLOUSE
LETTUCE, ROMAINE, BARCAROLE
LETTUCE, LOOSELEAF, SWEET VALENTINE
MELON, WATERMELON, MOON & STARS
ONION, VALENCIA
PEA, SNAP, SUGAR
PEA, SNOW, OREGON GIANT
PEPPER, SWEET, PIMIENTO-L
PEPPER, SWEET, CAL WONDER BELL
GARLIC, SOFTNECK, TRANSYLVANIAN - 1/2 LB.
Total Product $: 125.79
Grand Total: 149.59
I'm hopeing we're able to get $150 worth of produce out of this deal. :) Fortunately, I think we will because 1) we are learning 2) I'll plan meals around said produce and we'll be purchasing less meat 3) many of these plants are heirloom varieties so with a bit of work, we can keep and store seeds in order to plant next year. Enough of me rambling, though, it's time to study, shower, and paint something before I go to work.
I really wanted to get in my car last night to do just that. She and her family are in my thoughts today, all I can really do is send as much good, loving energy that way as I can.
****************
Things here are what they are. My grandmother has had some kind of seizure or something over the weekend, she was living in a nursing home. They still can't figure out if it was a stroke or what -- but they had to insert a pacemaker to regulate her heart. She conscious again, but Mom tells me she's raving and babbling -- before whatever it is happened, she was very cognizant and verbally understandable. So they're working on that.
The same weekend, my aunt had just come back from a short-notice trip to Johns Hopkins with heart trouble. She's had several bypass surgeries and a shunt (I think that's the right word) -- so another surgery, especially an emergency surgery, had us all holding our breath. But, she's home now, and recuperating, thankfully.
The weekend brought some reunions, too. We had dinner Saturday night with some very good friends that we'd not seen in a very long time -- they came over and I cooked a really interesting salt-crusted chicken, that, despite the ratio of 1 lb salt to 1 lb chicken, turned out not very salty and wonderfully tender and fragrant. Sunday, I had a friend from back in my highschool days stop by -- she'd located me on MySpace -- and it was absolutely great to see her. We chatted for a few hours. It would be great if we could get together again -- I think we've both changed in some very similar ways.
School is good. I love it, most of the time. Sometimes I think I have some mild form of Turrett's because my mouth has no "off" switch -- or well, it does, but often it doesn't work - especially in the classroom setting. And it's not profanity that comes out, it's some form of humor. *sigh* It's getting better though. I managed to quiet down yesterday, some.
Doug and I were supposed to finalize the closing on our house last week, transferring from the construction loan to the final mortgage. He finally went yesterday and did that. Friday was hell, though. Since we're not totally done, I wont' totally rant, but we're so incredibly frustrated and pissed off at our mortgage company that it's really turning into fury. They are just incredibly incompetant, and by the time we really discovered this, it was too late to really back out and go elsewhere. It's not just us, though, we're spoken to other folks in and around the business who've told us that what they've done to us is either illegal, or darned close -- at the very least unproffessional and incompetant. *sigh*
Oh, and we've had a rather large rotor tiller for about 2 weeks now, (18 inch rear tine tiller) and haven't been able to use it. The first weekend, we spent saturday on the phone with the tractor store trying to get it to go into gear. This was unsuccessful, so they sent someone out last week to fix it -- which was also unsuccessful. So now, this week sometime they'll be sending us a new one. We have to get two tills in by frost free in order to make the most of the growing season, it would be nice to get started!
We finally ordered seeds, and seedlings from Seeds of Change. Due to our tilling delays, I don't see much hope in starting too much indoors, they might get a bit unruly on me, like Erin's morning glories before I have somewhere to plant them. Doug has planted our rasperries and blackberries in the area that he and my brothers (and I - some) cleared of multi-flora over the past few weeks. Just beyond that will be our garden -- all 30' x 75' of it. We'll be cover-cropping about half of it with fava beans probably. I dunno though, looking at our seed order, we could use all of the room! Some of the seeds, like beans, greens, radishes, etc- you plant in succession so you don't have them all ripe, all at once. We also don't intent to plant huge amounts of any one veggie. This year is more about finding out what works -- so we have an assortment. My favorites are going to be to see how the San Marzano tomatoes, All-Blue potatoes, Black corn, Rosa Bianca eggplant work out (it's white and pink!), and moon and stars melon. I haven't even started on herbs, yet, and I love herbs with a passion. That's more of a "next-year" project, since I have an idea for an herb garden in an area that's not been cleared yet.
We've maybe lost our minds. In addition to these plants, I have some wax beans, turnips, mustard greens and luffa to plant:
LIVE, POTATO, ALL BLUE 2 LBS
LIVE, POTATO GERMAN BUTTERBALL 2 LBS
RADISH, GARDEN, CHAMPION
SPINACH, AMERICA
SUMMER SQUASH, COCOZELLE BUSH ZUCCHINI
SUMMER SQUASH, YELLOW CROOKNECK
WINTER SQUASH, SPAGHETTI
TOMATO, CHERRY, PEACEVINE
TOMATO, PASTE, ROMA
TOMATO, PASTE, SAN MARZANO
TOMATO, SLICING, YELLOW PERFECTION
TOMATO, SLICING, BRANDYWINE
BEETBERRY
BEAN, FAVA, SWEET LORANE - 5 LB.
BEAN INOCULANT
SEEDLING, MEDITERRANEAN SIX PACK
BEAN, BUSH, PAWNEE SHELL
BEAN, BUSH, BOUNTIFUL STRINGLESS SNAP
BEAN, BUSH, ROYAL BURGUNDY
BEAN, POLE, KENTUCKY WONDER
CORN, DAKOTA BLACK POPCORN
CORN, SWEET, STOWELLS
LETTUCE, CRISPHEAD, ROUGE DE GRENOBLOUSE
LETTUCE, ROMAINE, BARCAROLE
LETTUCE, LOOSELEAF, SWEET VALENTINE
MELON, WATERMELON, MOON & STARS
ONION, VALENCIA
PEA, SNAP, SUGAR
PEA, SNOW, OREGON GIANT
PEPPER, SWEET, PIMIENTO-L
PEPPER, SWEET, CAL WONDER BELL
GARLIC, SOFTNECK, TRANSYLVANIAN - 1/2 LB.
Total Product $: 125.79
Grand Total: 149.59
I'm hopeing we're able to get $150 worth of produce out of this deal. :) Fortunately, I think we will because 1) we are learning 2) I'll plan meals around said produce and we'll be purchasing less meat 3) many of these plants are heirloom varieties so with a bit of work, we can keep and store seeds in order to plant next year. Enough of me rambling, though, it's time to study, shower, and paint something before I go to work.
posted by Laura | 7:43 AM
3 Comments:
OMG, Laura. You made me tired just reading. lol...Yes, there has been a lot going on for us all. Lot's of change, some good, some bad, but change nonetheless. Hope things get better with the mortgage company. We've had dealing ourselves and it's almost enough to not want to purchase property ever again! *hug* You have to keep us posted with the plantings. Juan has started some already and we're hoping to get some great veggies this year. Our fruit trees are blooming already! Check on you later! Give D a hug for me.
Oh my! You really can't ever find the right words in that situation. I can only imagine what they are feeling & in the same respect really can't handle trying to fathom it.
On a lighter note, the veggies sound soooo yummy!!!!!!! I have plans for a VERY small veggie crop in pots on the patio but I have a few more weeks until I can plant. I guess this is all as my children have now eaten almost an entire block of cheese while I've been reading your blog!
Oh L, I love you guys so much. There just aren't words, and so we try and try and keep banging our heads against the futility of language. Particularly frustrating for us writer types I think.
Just knowing that you were thinking of me is more than enough. I really do feel so LUCKY to have you as a friend. Someday, we will meet - but I don't want it to be in sad or somber circumstances anyway.
I'd much rather it was a face-to-face version of the St. Patty's day call. And really, no ne believes me I think, but I'm OK, really OK... I'm coping in a much different (less hide-in-my-bedroom-and-feel-nothing) way... Nova was a gift, and I may have had to give him back, but every day I had with him was special. I'm just concentrating on that. Of course I'm hurting, but I'm also smiling, and that's something I didn't do for at least a year after Alexis died...
love you both, MUCH.
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