Friday, March 9, 2012

Where Does the Time Go?

I can't believe a whole week has come and gone since I wrote last. Well, if I'm honest, I can. I feel just as beat up this Friday as I did last Friday.

And it doesn't seem to be just me, either. I overhear people—Scoob, people on facebook, real people (not that people on facebook aren't real, but, oh, you know!)—I don't know if Mercury is in retrograde or what, but I'm really hoping for a change of something soon.

Let's see. What has happened here since our last visit?

  • We went out last Saturday and got peat and compost for our Square Foot Garden.
  • Of course, somewhere along the line I misunderstood and thought we needed 8 cu. ft. each of peat, compost, and vermiculite for a 4' x 4' x 6" raised garden box; we need 8 cu. ft. total in a 1:1:1 mix.
  • So yeah, we have an assload of peat and compost in the garage. But I'm sure we'll build another box once we get the hang of it.
  • Of course, one of the compost bags (the one made from cow manure) ripped open while wrestling it in or out of the car. Yea.
  • Every where we looked didn't have vermiculite in the quantity we needed (or thought we needed); most places seem to carry in 8 qt. bags. Luckily I found a farm supply place that carries it in 4 cu. ft. bags. And they're local! woohoo! So we'll pick that up this weekend.
  • We also got some shredded mulch to fill in the flower beds. Of course, we got the wrong kind—we got a reddish shredded hardwood and it looks like they laid out a brown nugget-style hardwood. I'm thinking I may (get Scoob to) transfer the mulch from under the back porch (never did understand why the landscaping company laid it out so thick there) for the front flower beds and spread the mistake stuff under there instead.
  • And we picked up some deer netting (damn deer) and stakes so I can (get Scoob to) enclose some of the plants they've been munching on.
  • And I pulled weeds. Now I know there are Weed Pullin' Muscles and Lawn Mowin' Muscles.
  • Scoob fertilized the lawn and was oddly excited when he found deer droppings on the lawn. ??
  • We got a sock-style bird feeder with thistle seed and the finches seem to really like it.




  • We also got a seed bell, which the birdies also love. And now that the little birds are ripping up the bell, the cardinals have taken to ground feeding.




  • I got a picture of our resident bluebird!




  • He seems fascinated with the newspaper box below the mailbox, but there's no evidence of nest building in there.
  • Friends of ours are moving, so last Sunday we helped them pack a bit, and took what we wanted from their "donate" pile. So now we have some decorations, a sewing machine (!), Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit (please come over and play), some cookbooks I'm looking forward to going through, and I'm sure some junk that we're just going to end up donating anyhow.










  • We also bought a large-grid calendar and colored posties so I can try to keep track of my new ebook production responsibilities at work.
  • It's not working.
  • So I've devised a spreadsheet that also acts as a flowchart! Now I can see each ebook by title and at a glance I can tell where it is in the process, who has it, when they got it, and whether or not I need to follow up with them.
  • Now I just need paper big enough to print it on and a printer that can handle it. We're going to get some legal-sized paper this weekend. That should work.
  • I have reduced my work days from 12 to 10 hours. Getting better.
  • I think I've actually planned a menu for dinners next week. I'm kinda stoked about that. We'll see how it works out.
  • Had to run all the comforters through the laundry on Thursday. Dozer barfed on the bed in the middle of the night, and we found a cockroach (!!!!!)(!!!!!) on the window seat in my office. We've been using a couple old comforters there for padding. So in the wash they went.
  • And we started disinfecting the house like mad.
  • I've realized that somewhere in the past couple weeks (since returning to work, basically), I've gone from a cup-a-day coffee habit to a pot-a-day.
  • Want to get that back under control, but seeing how overwhelmed and cranky I've been the past couple weeks, I'm wary of cutting back drastically. But they're probably related. 
  • Extra caffeine + odd sleep = cranky
  • It doesn't help that Dozer has become my 4:00 am alarm clock. Every morning.
  • I need to start exercising again. I think about it, but then there's just "one more thing" to get done for work and the next thing I know, it's late and Scoob and the kitties are staring at me asking what's for dinner  and I'm exhausted.
  • I started a jigsaw puzzle last weekend on the dining table. 
  • There's no light fixture in the dining room. This is actually a good thing as it means I cannot stay up all night working on it.
  • I started and finished reading my book club read for March, A Visit from the Goon Squad. I really liked it. I enjoyed the shifting point-of-view and jumbled up chronology—a lot of people didn't. The book is about the passage of time, so the title of this post is appropriate. But what I really liked was the consideration of pauses. Maybe I'll get into that more another time. Kind of hoping the book club discussion will help some of the things I'm thinking coalesce.

I'm sure there's more, but they're giving me the what's for dinner look. (Which, by the way, is the Dude Ranch Stew.)

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