Our Herb Garden

There it is: our brand-new herb garden. I dug out a little corner of the yard right next to the patio. I figured that an herb garden should be pretty close to the house so I can just run out while I'm cooking. Parsley, rosemary, chives, and cilantro. That's it...those are the ones I'm likely to use in great quantities. We get herbs as part of our CSA share, so I didn't want to go too overboard.

We also planted our sunflower seeds. I refrained from taking a picture of that as I can't imagine it would be all that interesting to see a picture of an empty bed. Hey, hopefully in a couple months, though, I'll be posting pictures of gigantic sunflowers!

And, I couldn't resist: when I went to the garden store, right next to the herbs were strawberries. I got six little plants and stuck them in front of the sunflowers. I have no idea what will happen: if they'll ever even grow strawberries, or if any strawberries that grow will be eaten by animals. Who knows, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try. They're June bearers, and already have a few flowers so it shouldn't be too long a wait to see what happens!

I think this is it for me in terms of gardening. We have a giant area of overgrown garden that is still wild and untended. I'm not going to attempt to clean it up this year. In good news, I know at the very back corner of it, there are wild blackberries growing. In the past we've eaten a few berries, but mostly have just left them for the birds. This year I think I'll brave the thorns and try to get a more sizable amount. Birds be damned!

Random unrelated thought: I'm part way into Unaccustomed Earth by Jumpha Lahiri. I have to get moving. I have both that book and Run from the library and both are 14 day no renewal books that are due next week. Stupid trip to NJ eating away at my reading time! I didn't have time to read at all while I was there, probably due to the fact that I had at least one child hanging on me at all times of the day and night.

I'm LESS green than the average US citizen??

Wow, according to this test, my GreenIQ is slightly lower than the average US citizen, which I find hard to believe.



I think I must have entered something wrong, or maybe they don't take into consideration that it was winter in New England and therefore energy costs were high. Or maybe my lack of public transportation usage puts me behind all those city-dwellers. Who knows. Anyway, it was an interesting test, and there are some good tips on the site (as well as some annoying advertising while you're taking the test).

Plus, they'll donate a tree just for you taking the test. How's that for a pretty painless way to participate in Earth Day? Well, we'll see how painless it is when I see how much junk email I end up getting as a result of this. Oh well, at least they only ask for an email address so they won't clutter up my actual mailbox with paper waste :)

Happy Earth Day!

In honor of Earth Day, I'm going to make my 10% promise official (or at least as official as writing it on a blog can be): I'm going to try to change 10% of what I do. Buy one thing of organic vegetables each time I go shopping. Buy less plastic (and less stuff in general). Recycle more, including bringing home plastic cups and bottles when we're out and it's more convenient to just throw them in the trash. Do the laundry in cold water, and turn off the extra rinse cycle (I've actually been doing this for a few months and my clothes seem clean. Maybe the people who know me will tell me if I seem dirtier than I used to??).

I can't change everything. It's too much. But I can change a little. And when I get used to that, I can change a little more.

So that's that.

We're off now to go buy some herbs to plant a little herb garden. And we'll be planting our sunflower seeds today...thanks to KCRSummertime for the great suggestion!

Happy Earth Day!

Random Unrelated Thought: We're back from our trip to NJ for Passover. I have TONS to blog about, although nothing too major that can't wait. But you'll probably be reading about the trip for days as I get all my thoughts down.

Yes, we are flakier!

Continuing in my love of the random google hits that lead people here, I am pleased to announce that I have discovered that I am the NUMBER ONE google hit for "are people flakier". Try for yourself and see. I am the best source on the web for information about the general flakiness of people.

So, for those of you who are wondering, the answer is yes. People are flakier.

Now you know.

Random silliness

Okay, I've been in a pissed off mood. What, you noticed? Did my last blog entry tip you off? (Note for future readers, I'm not sure how long my rant will stay up. I'd imagine it will become the first of my posts to be thrown into the trash bin, for obvious reasons to anyone who has read and has become worried that my relatives would seek to poison my food. So if you read this, look down an entry, and wonder to yourself, "hmmm, why does a quickie post about Star Wars mean she's in a bad mood?", well, that just means you missed it. See, that's what you get for not checking all the time to make sure I don't have a new post up! I hope you've learned your lesson!)

But, my bad mood is affecting my ability to think of blogging topics. All my ideas are mean and contain lots of asterisks standing in for swear words. That's just not good. So in an effort to cheer myself up and lighten the mood, you will now be treated to one randomly weird thing about me. Here it is:

I used to be a carny. Okay, it might not have been that bad. I worked two summers at a shady local amusement park in the games department. You know, "step right up, step right up and try your luck!"

Yes, the games are fixed.

Want to know any insider tips? I was the queen of Wacky Wire. Oh yeah, I was unstoppable, although not as good as the guy who worked there who could do it with his eyes closed. I wonder if I could still do it?

When I worked in the arcade, I used to bring lots of quarters and play Lita Ford endlessly. And sometimes Guns and Roses. I probably spent more those days than I made.

The only saving grace of that crappy job was when I'd get to work a game with a friend (hi, Maggie!) Or when someone you knew was working at the ice cream stand and would give you a free ice cream when you went on break. Is there anything more delicious than stolen ice cream? Oh, my life of crime!

Wow, that was kind of fun. Lots better than an angry rant! Watch out, you might be subjected to more odd remembrances...

Random unrelated thoughts: The boys haven't been napping well. Today was a beautiful day so we were playing in the backyard. I made up a game that required them to run up and down a hill in our backyard. Yes, I made up the game to tire them out. Does that make me a bad mom? Because it worked great and they both napped. I might take them out every day to play this game. I guess the real test of "mom of the year" material would be if I still marched them out there in the rain...

Name that movie!

From the Verizon show description guide:

A naive farmboy is thrust into the midst of an intergalactic civil war.

Do you know what movie this describes??

Inappropriate public conversation number 963

I took my boys to the library today to return their books, get out some new ones, and put a hold on my impossible-to-find next book group selection (Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri).

Then I decided to spend two minutes looking for a book for myself. I've been wanting to read Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin for quite some time. It's been on my list to look for in used book stores for over a year, and I just haven't found it yet. But she was mentioned briefly in The Omnivore's Dilemma, and then I just read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time which is a fictional story of a boy with autism so I decided this was just too much of a coincidence and I needed to read Thinking in Pictures right away.

Of course my library is a total disaster. Even with the call number, it's usually impossible to find the book you need since they seem to use numerical order more as a suggestion than a fixed rule. Hey, maybe they're following my system of organizing books by color! Who knows, I haven't managed to figure out their system yet. It's a bit of a mystery.

But I digress with this long explanation simply to set the stage. N-man had picked a book about trains, so I set the boys in a chair as I start my search for Thinking in Pictures and let them read their new books. I'm up on a ladder, searching through books far above my head, and of course, even though I'm in the right call number section, my book is nowhere in sight. Suddenly I hear, quite loudly in the silence of the library, "Mommy, I see Percy!"

Now, anyone who has little boys probably knows that Percy is the green Thomas the Train character. And sure enough in his book was a picture of a real train that was painted green. What a great connection for him to make!

But here's the problem: the boys don't say Percy. They clearly say "pussy". So he's yelling: "Mommy, I see Percy!" but that's not what it sounds like he's saying. Then B-Man comes over to look. "Mommy, green Percy!" "That's nice honey, but let's use our inside voice." "Percy! Percy!" "Shhh, we have to be very quiet in the library." "Mommy, there's Percy!"

This goes on for a few minutes until finally, cheeks blazing, I take away the book to try to get them to look at B-man's book about trucks. That was the worst idea ever. Because what did they both yell immediately? "Mommy, I want Percy!" Sigh. I bet all the guys sitting around were wondering if we found the secret porn section of the library.

Random related thought: I finally had to ask the reference librarian why I couldn't find the book I wanted. Here's the explanation I got:

Librarian: "Oh, is that a biography?"

Me: "Yes."

Librarian: "We pulled all the biographies off the shelves and put them in a section upstairs."

Me: "I thought we weren't allowed to go upstairs."

Librarian: "You're not, but I can go get it for you in a few minutes."

Me, looking at my watch and realizing I'm supposed to be home in 5 minutes for the start of the SIX hour window the gas company gave me for when they're coming to switch our meter, but that's another rant for another day: "That's okay. I guess I don't really need it."

I guess all my signs to read Thinking in Pictures immediately were canceled out by the sign from my ill-organized library not to read it. It's not like I don't have enough books to read. I'll just keep Thinking in Pictures on my list. Maybe it'll be at the used book store next time I go!