Hey folks. Has it already been 4 months since I wrote that I felt there was some bad mojo floating around?
I noticed there's bad things that happen to me the longer I'm stressed out about something. Very short term intense stress leads me to power through and solve problems. Short term intense stress leads to some panicked feelings. Longer term (a month?) of stress leads me to become a basket case - like forgetting things, knocking glasses of water over onto my computer. Feeling like every bad thing is happening either because I'm distracted, or bad things feel worse when I'm less equipped to handle them.
You can imagine what four months of high and low level stress from multiple sources is doing to me, and the result negative affects only stress me out more. Can we say bad cycle? I feel like every time I make some progress up these last few months, something comes and knocks me down again. Try to fix one thing and something else breaks.
It is very hard to not start to expect these bad things to start happening to you. To not attribute everything little thing into a string of never ending badness. Right now, this moment, I can't sleep and I feel like I'm trying to hold myself and life all together but it's not quite working. I ask myself, are things really so bad? Really? Things could be a lot worse, right?
Tell you what, though. I'm up at 3 whatever o clock and I feel bad.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Farmville!
When I moved into my current apartment I was thrilled to discover there was a patio included in our living space. It's actually pretty sizable, although mostly concrete. There's a dirt edging the concrete and I instantly thought about planting a garden! I'd gotten so far as to put in flower bulbs through most of the before I realized how much fun it would be to start a vegetable garden!
Of course once I had this idea I'd had these dreams of growing enough to just have mounds of fresh leafy greens at my disposal. I'd have beets and radishes spilling out of my vegetable crisper and I'd give them away to friends and family who would be duly impressed.
Turns out growing things from seed during an El Nino year, with limited sunlight at all and poor light in the yard doesn't yield a lot in the way of beets and carrots and radishes, However, I've been having some decent luck with lettuce and chard (not from seed) in a planter box. This picture is my first chard harvest. Weeks of growing and some monetary investment went into producing these leaves that were enough for....one side dish to serve...one. ME! Ha! Not exactly the bonanza of fresh produce I was hoping for!
I just read a great article (thanks Dave!) about a man in Brooklyn running an experiment to see if he could live off his backyard for a month. And he did! Sort of.. .enough for one meal a day for 3 weeks, after spending $11,000 -
http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/37273/
I'll admit even after reading this I still have dreams of having enough tomatoes to make jars of sauce, or enough peppers or squash to preserve for the winter. After all I'm not trying to LIVE off a home garden, and at least I feel better knowing that my parents' garden ALREADY produces enough fruit to make tons of jam. But I'm jazzed to keep on with my experiments in vegetable gardening in a bigger, sunnier space. I think the key will be to aim for plants with higher yields.
Wish me luck!
Of course once I had this idea I'd had these dreams of growing enough to just have mounds of fresh leafy greens at my disposal. I'd have beets and radishes spilling out of my vegetable crisper and I'd give them away to friends and family who would be duly impressed.
Turns out growing things from seed during an El Nino year, with limited sunlight at all and poor light in the yard doesn't yield a lot in the way of beets and carrots and radishes, However, I've been having some decent luck with lettuce and chard (not from seed) in a planter box. This picture is my first chard harvest. Weeks of growing and some monetary investment went into producing these leaves that were enough for....one side dish to serve...one. ME! Ha! Not exactly the bonanza of fresh produce I was hoping for!
I just read a great article (thanks Dave!) about a man in Brooklyn running an experiment to see if he could live off his backyard for a month. And he did! Sort of.. .enough for one meal a day for 3 weeks, after spending $11,000 -
http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/37273/
I'll admit even after reading this I still have dreams of having enough tomatoes to make jars of sauce, or enough peppers or squash to preserve for the winter. After all I'm not trying to LIVE off a home garden, and at least I feel better knowing that my parents' garden ALREADY produces enough fruit to make tons of jam. But I'm jazzed to keep on with my experiments in vegetable gardening in a bigger, sunnier space. I think the key will be to aim for plants with higher yields.
Wish me luck!
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Plus, I can't get over the awesomeness of having THIS happen every time I open up a fresh jar. Nothing says AWESOME like some insane bubbling followed by the spicy fermented vegetable goodness. I'm happily stinking up the office with some now...although, my co-worker's eyes just started watering and he just had to leave. Eeeeep...sorry!! O_o I'm THAT annoying coworker.