I have to get back into an earlier groove. It gets dark too early to do stuff outside, when I am “awake”.
Month: September 2012
Closer To Normal
I have been picking up so much free junque my house was getting close to being nominated for Hoarders. I only have 680 square feet to work with, so I have to be careful. I have sold quite a few things, 54 so far. I decided to get rid of my “free” stacks of magazines that I never had time to look through. I took them all to be recycled. Almost all great ideas end up online now anyway. Then I can put them on pinterest, instead of filling up my square footage. I also sold enough to empty out a tote of packing peanuts that I also got for free. I dropped off a small bag at goodwill, and only bought a small bag of stuff there to replace it. I need to clean everything up and take pictures. This will have to wait until tomorrow.
I spent quite a bit of time chopping up veggies that my neighbor grew and gave me. I fried up the broccoli (the freshest I had ever seen), tomatilla (not recognized by spellcheck), two kinds of peppers, and tomatoes red and green. I then mixed it all with brown rice. It was good, for something I cooked. It needed more spice. I just put in a little black pepper and garlic.
Tomorrow, after the picture taking and organizing what is left I hope to bake some banana blueberry muffins, or bread. I hope it is good enough to give some to the neighbors who have did so much for me so far.
Do Owls say Who Who or Hoo Hoo?
Seriously, if they give a hoot, would it be hoot hoot? I saw this pair today and just had to have them. Just temporarily, because hopefully they will sell. The 70’s live on. They were the worst and best years of my life. Then I grew up. But not much, I am still a kid deep inside.
My baby boy goes off to his first middle school dance
I gave up my Friday night out at the auction, so I could be closer to home. Just in case I get the phone call from my son to pick him up early from the dance. He has been looking forward to it all week. Two hours in and no phone call. That is a good sign. He has been talking about some girls in his homework to his buddy all week. I overheard him, but he sort of clams up when I ask him anything. Then he said, so I can ask a girl to hang out here, and the kicker, all the time. Wow, what is up with all the time? Why can’t he just call once in awhile. Dance with her once or twice. Maybe go see a movie together next month. He is only 12, and without a job, I will be damned if I fund him and his 12 year old crush to have a better time than me, He spent yesterday sulking and moody when I asked him to help me finish cleaning up the tree. He wants to get paid for it, I want him to actually help before he gets paid. That is the American way, with me as president. But, I feel like a dictator bossing him around. I need to sit him down and discuss calmly the rules for earning money to do fun stuff. I will try not to give the walk to work barefoot for 7 miles in my day speech.
I have been shamelessly plugging my ebay site (diana14gallery) on pinterest. I desperately need extra cash. I need to get my furnace started up by a professional. It is a natural gas hot water baseboard boiler type thing. It is much more complicated than electric. Hopefully it will be more economical. I fired up the quartz eden pure type heater. It has been a little chilly at night, so no one wants to get out of bed in the morning. My dog actually left my bed, to sleep on the sofa, roasting in front of the heater. She is a smart girl. If I was smart, I would just move the thing closer to my room. I will probably bring it into my son’s room if he starts to get his yearly bronchitis attack. Other pressing winter issues are keeping mice out of my house and shed. They are already in my shed. I have snakes in there too. They are supposed to eat mice, but they are not doing the job. I don’t want the snakes in there either, so I have been contemplating chickens or guinea hens to take care of it. Of course that brings on multiple other problems I can’t deal with now.
No Time for a Real Pic
I have been trying to take pictures of all my junque to sell on ebay. I picked up this lovely gem, and the golf club snapped off. Damn plastic. Well I decided to list it anyhow, people buy crazy stuff. You can unscrew the fake statuette and replace with something else. Well, I broke another one just before its photo shoot. That is ok, I have plenty more.
I was so tired today from cleaning up after the tree. My arm has been sore for days, and I wrenched my back last night from giving the dog a bath. It happened when she tried and succeeded to jump out still all soapy. She really hates being wet. It took a lot of physical coercion to get her back in and rinsed off. My son helped me too. She really needs to be tied to the bathtub as cruel as it sounds, it is just for a few minutes once in awhile, and for her own good.
Lady Luck
Well this is another view of the shattered tree and that is my ram shackelled shed in the background. It WILL look nice and pretty someday. I threw my bricks and blocks I got free, and some free pallets are stacked there. I also have a stack of plates, cause I saw a neat idea on pinterest to edge your garden beds with plates. Anyhow, this post is about today’s storm and tornado warnings. I felt like a sitting duck. I have four huge trees to the east of me. The wind was coming from the southeast today. Very unusual. I have no basement, you do the math. I am not sure, bit I think my utility room would be the safest. there is no windows. There is barely room for me to stand in there, let alone the dog. It would be harder to get the dog in the bathtub during a tornado. I might buy her and I crash helmets. I keep telling my son to get ready to put his bike helmet on in case of tornado or bad winds. Well, we made it through this one. The trees in my side yard are a lot healthier with lots of leaves. Only a few small branches fell today.
I stayed inside most of the day, after I rescued my camp chair I had out to sit between cleaning up the day before. I am taking advantage of the free listings I get at ebay. I am putting a bunch of 99 cent merchandise on. I just need my number a little higher, since some people are scared to bid on a low numbered seller. Or so they say, and what do they know. I have about 30 percent sell through, and that is not too shabby. I just need to upgrade my merchandise to up my profit. I also need to perfect the shipping game, it is killing me.
Shattered
I knew this tree was going to be a problem someday. It was already dead. It was near my property line and shed. I was not sure if it was the corner of my line, or of it was planted on my neighbors. They used it for a mowing line marker. It did however land directly on my backyard. It also shattered into hundreds of pieces. I picked up over half of them today. The neighbor boy was eagerly sawing off the remaining branches. His dad said he would come over with the chain saw. He needed to get it gassed and fired up first. I need to accelerate my plans to build an outdoor fire pit/barbecue. I also need to build some raised beds to put all the bark chaff into so it will compost over the winter. It will be a mini Huglekultur raised bed.
I quit early tonight. I was getting too cold, even with my hoodie on. I was so tired after dinner I fell asleep.
Avocado Update
This is the same plant that I sprouted from a pit a few months ago. He grew despite the tiny pot he is in, and the lack of good constant care. I will re-pot him real soon, give a shot of compost, and hope he makes it all Winter. I really don’t know if it is male or female. It just gets droopy sometimes when it lacks water or sun, hence calling it male. I have another pit ready to plant. If they all live, it will be more incentive to get my greenhouse built by early next year. My house really does not have room for small trees. I only live in 680 square feet. I already run into the furniture, dog, my son, stuff laying around. I need to hang some of my plants from the ceiling.
Found A BIG Thrift Store
It is not on my regular rounds of cruising around. I am going to go back for sure, when I have other things going on that way. When I stopped today, I had my dog in the car. I could only find partial shade to park in. It was in the 60’s and sunny, so I had to be quick. I did not even search the front corner of the store and I spotted these. Instant love at first sight. I could not find anything to match, so I am jonesing to go back soon. Next time I will leave the dog home. She was my faithful companion, and got her sniffing out the window dog brain activity in, while I went and picked up a huge box of stuff from craigslist. I have a few things for my ebay sight, hope to list them tonight. I have a few things for my next yard sale, whenever that miracle happens. I also have a couple of things I am going to use myself, like fall wreaths. I have not got my act together to make a wreath for my door. I bought a wreath form, and have some ideas in my head. Nothing ever was produced, YET. Ha, Ha, now I can procrastinate longer. I also had to dig in my shed for my yarn bin. While in there I had to pull out my Halloween decorations. We bought a small pumpkin from the neighbor. I had picked up a bucket of HUGE pine cones that fell in my yard. With the fall wreaths and the chill in the air, it calls for my favorite holiday to be dragged out longer than intended.
I also managed to get a little walk in on the horse trail on the way home. Ashley does not run as much with just me there. I can not run at all, or even walk fast. I hope to step up my walking as much as my swollen ankle allows.
Scrappy Doo, The Junkyard Hound
Ashley, my co-pilot, has been riding in the front seat lately. I guess it is because my son is in school. She could be secretly wanting to take over and drive herself. She does jump in my seat when I go in the store. That leaves me with tons more things to wash. Her dog stink builds up quickly in a week. She hates getting a bath, so if she is lucky, she gets one a 10 day week, instead of weekly.
Today we took her to the state park, in the woods trail. She ran full speed. until she was too tired to stop and smell anymore. I did not get her collar washed. I did not do many things I set out to today. I still feel beat. I did not even run at all.
In Sync With The Universe 