Corner of Bourbon & Division

Although I was enthused at the idea of having my own veggie garden, I must admit that I never expected to enjoy gardening quite this much. There is something wonderfully peaceful about going outside and simply puttering, pulling a weed here, fussing about a plant there. I even enjoy watering the garden with my new hose.

Perhaps it's the "new shiny" aspect of it all, but I think I'm going to enjoy this in the long term as well.

Once I'm off night shift, I think I'll be spending a lot of time in the garden. :)

moonandtree have netted the most accessible part of the garden, but we've run out of netting. I guess that'll just go on the ever-increasing list of Things To Get. Yeesh. Still no sign of my tax refund. *sigh*

I'm hoping the marmots will vacate once their food source is gone. One of the neighbours generously pointed out to us today that we really ought to get rid of the marmot because it ate all his lettuce too. Gee, thanks buddy.

I'm less and less inclined to go to work this week, and next week is night shift, which guarantees I won't want to go. Bleh.

All right. Time to get cracking.

Another busy week ahead of me. I have work, the gym, the dentist, a hairdresser's appointment (my hair is falling in my eyes and I can't see!) and a whole bunch of errands that I didn't get to this weekend. I have tcaptain and maya_banana's wedding this weekend for which I must be ready. Most of this week I'll be working evening shift, but today I switched with Lanky!Coworker so she could have some extra time at home with her husband who also works evening shift.

So this afternoon I'm going to the gym, then I have to go grocery shopping. I have almost run out of a bunch of staples, and worse I have almost run out of cat food and cat litter, which is Not Good. I am also almost out of laundry detergent. Speaking of which, I finally got around to using my clothes line yesterday, and went to bed in sheets and pajamas that smelled like lilacs (the neighbours have a tree near the clothes line). It was nice. :)

My life is exciting, isn't it? After the grocery shopping I'll be doing some cooking, and heading to bed hopefully at a decent hour.

I watched Hellboy last night, and since I'm not at all familiar with the comic, I thought it was pretty cute. Nothing to write home about, but cute. I hear the sequel is pretty terrible, but since someone lent it to me for free I may at least start it to see if I enjoy it.

Mostly what I want to be doing these days is staying home and puttering in the garden. This isn't going to happen for another two weeks, but I'll take what I can get. Next week I'll be working night shift (yay), so maybe I'll be able to get some work done in the garden in the early morning before going to bed. At the very least I need to water the garden when it's not raining. I finally bought a garden hose, and let me tell you it has made a WORLD of difference in how much work it is to keep the veggies watered. My new nozzle comes with seven settings. SEVEN! It's very exciting.

I feel as though I haven't seen most of my friends in a dog's age.

Yesterday was pretty damned harrowing at work, work-load-wise. I arrived just in time for a fire drill. We evacuated the OCC across the street, where of course none of the back-up equipment worked and only one phone was functional (*cue frustrated screaming*), and moved back in about an hour and a half later. The phones went crazy all day, the lines ringing 5 to 10 at a time, with only four of us to answer them (and one of us was my n00b-in-training). Then toward the end of the day the crazy frequent-fliers began calling, which truly b0rked our afternoon because it always takes forever to get them off the line. I left in dire need of a drink.

I arrived at Hurley's at 18:30 to find most of the usual suspects gone. Luckily, miseri and sorceror showed up, followed shortly thereafter by Bruno-who-has-no-LJ-that-I-know-of, and we had a fun time geeking out over musicals, d&d (2nd, 3rd & 4th ed), L4D and countless other fun topics. Then we all turned into pumpkins at 20:30 and headed home, where I collapsed into bed.

This weekend I have to cram a whole bunch of things into a very short space of time. I want to plant new tomatoes in the garden (the Brandywines are officially toast, I am sad to report), and one of the side beds still needs excavating and planting. I want to get more herbs to plant, and there is a TON of weeding to be done. There are two patches of weeds in the garden that are currently rivalling the virgin rainforests of the Amazon, and I want to dig those up and replace them with lovely perennial flowers, or something. I also have plans for the minor gardening wasteland at the base of the cherry tree, which is happy and blossoming (the tree, that is). I am feeling guilty about the cherry tree, because I didn't get to spray it in time before it blossomed, so I fear it will develop that fungus it gets in the summer. I hope it'll be okay.

Then I have plans to get an outfit for tcaptain and maya_banana's wedding.

All this to say that I will have to really squish things into my schedule if I want to both see friends, get some sort of sleep, and make sure the garden is okay.

I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be getting my tax refund soon. Sooner would be much better than later, at this point. I'm not running on empty, but there are things that need to be paid off which would get paid off more quickly if I had it. *sigh* Money sucks when it's not flowing freely.

I think I had more to say, but I can't remember it right now. The latent headache I've had all week is really wrecking my ability to focus.

Today has consisted of a beautiful spring day. The Brandywines are wilting, perhaps due to overnight frost, which is making me very sad. I slept well and long enough that I'm not stupidly tired anymore, and I had a nice breakfast of coffee and cereal with a banana.

Spent a chunk of the morning gardening first by myself and then with moonandtree and we ironed out some of the plans for the garden, and planted cucumber, onions, garlic, parsley and tarragon. I need to buy a hose for the garden. We also cut back the rose bushes, which according to moonandtree are behaving atypically for rose bushes.

I made lunch, and prepared to go to work. Then I stepped in grass-riddled cat puke which someone (*cough*Gretzky*cough*) thoughtfully left at the foot of my bed. I ranted at the cats for about five minutes, along the lines of "Why must my life necessarily involve stealth puke? WHY?"

I changed my socks, made it to the bus in time, and arrived in time to be told that one of the members had made a complaint about me yesterday, claiming I was impolite with her. See, apparently "impolite" now means "didn't give the answer I wanted to hear." Luckily my supervisor listened to the call and determined that she was on crack, and apparently told her so in no uncertain terms. Yay for having good bosses! :)

So today has been a mixed bag. Overall I am in a good mood, though, so I'm chalking it up as a win.

I got a little impatient and decided that instead of digging up the side beds, I would plant my seedlings today. I was also a little paranoid that they would die in their containers overnight. I realize this was improbable, but whatever. Who says paranoia is rational?

So I planted the tomatoes, the lettuce, the green and red peppers, and a strawberry bush. I apparently have more seedlings than I have space, which is a bit sad. This year is all about learning how to manage the garden, though, so next year I will have a better idea of how many things to plant.

If moonandtree doesn't come by today (he said he might), then tomorrow will be digging up the side beds and planting the herbs I bought. Contrary to the other seedlings, I think I have room for more, but I shall see once the planting is done. If I have time, I will also be setting up the beans and peas and so forth in individual containers on the front porch. If I don't have time, that will go to Thursday. Wednesday is a stupidly busy day involving the dentist, so there won't be any gardening time.

I realized also that I have no garden hose at the back. This will have to be remedied soon.

I am way less depressed about the garden than I was on Friday, or even yesterday. Seeing all the seedlings happily settled has done wonders for my morale, so I don't regret my choice.

moonandtree helped me with the edge trimmer thing, but I appear to have done something wrong with the cutting line, so maybe next weekend I'll make a concerted attempt to figure out how it works. *sigh* I should probably stick to low-tech tools.

I also have a "spare" bed nearer the house, which I am considering filling with flowers, as I don't think the soil there is deep enough for anything that's not purely decorative. Plus, it'll be pretty! It'll go right next to the peonies.

Added bonus: the cherry tree began to blossom a few days ago. It's very pretty!

Okay, so today I've been going at the garden in earnest. I started a little under two hours ago and now have turned the earth in two of the raised beds. Since moonandtree and his father took care of one and a half of the beds last weekend, that leaves one half of a raised bed and both beds on either side of the garden.

The rain has mostly held off. I had a few scattered raindrops while I worked, but I glared at the sky, ordered it to stop, and it did. So, bonus!

I am taking a break now, lest I kill myself my first day of gardening. Then I'm going back to deal with more of the beds (the side ones are the worst of the lot, unfortunately), and cut back the daffodils whose blooms have already wilted. The tulips are out!


I went to Atwater Market this morning and acquired a whole bunch of seedlings. I don't know if I'll be able to plant them today, but if I can't today then I'll do it either tomorrow or Tuesday morning.

I have no idea how ai731 did all this on her own. Mind you, maybe it would be easier if I wasn't working eighty-hour weeks...

Right now I'm going to figure out something for lunch, and then head back out. The only good part about this weather is that I'm not dying of heat while trying to dig out my beds.

The Overtime Fairy is only giving me work on Saturday and not both weekend days. That's not too bad. It'll give me time to get stuff done on Sunday.

I'm training my n00b full-time now, and so far today it's going better than last week. She's calmer, and there are fewer calls today, resulting in a lower stress level for everyone concerned. So, on the whole, win. It is really tiring to train someone. The level of mental drain is similar to when I was in training myself. I don't know how regular trainers/teachers do it. I figure we're in for another three weeks of this: right up until I switch to night shift. By then she should be ready, if her progress thus far is any indication.

I forgot how much I don't feel like doing housework after a twelve-hour shift at work. :P So my dishes have yet to be dealt with. I will do them tonight, come hell or high water.

I am feeling horribly guilty about neglecting the garden as much as I have. Maybe sometime this week I'll be able to get to it...

The parental units are coming to dinner, so I have a fair bit of prep to do before they get here. The maternal unit is coming early, claiming her ancestral right to muck about in my garden, which will be nice. The daffodils are in bloom, replacing the crocus that poked out of the ground last week. Daffodils are her favourite flowers, so she should enjoy that.

I am thinking of planting a lilac tree in the front yard. Lilacs are my favourite flowers, and I've always liked having lilacs around my home. My last place in Verdun had a big lilac tree in front. I have no idea where I could get a lilac to plant, but I guess I'll try Atwater market and see if they have any there.

I need to fold and put away my laundry and tidy the kitchen, and then run out to do some errands. Hopefully somewhere in there I'll actually be able to get out into the garden and muck about a bit myself.

Okay, that's not entirely true. I slept eight hours yesterday after getting home from work in the morning. I got up long enough to see the Parental Units for Easter dinner and then go to the gym, where my trainer had me do suicide runs up and down the stairs, GAH!

I crawled out of the gym using my tongue, because the rest of me was too damned tired.

I slept another nine hours overnight, though I didn't sleep all that well. I kept waking up every few hours, and I seem to recall having some very funky dreams, though they have all faded by now.

Tonight I am having a grown-up dinner with tcaptain and his lovely fiancée (soon to be wife!) maya_banana. That means grocery shopping, tidying and cooking will be the order of the day today. I'm very excited about this. This is precisely the sort of thing I had in mind when I moved in here last year.

My ducks are finally starting to be lined up, and so I am looking forward to inviting more people over in the coming months. With summer nearly here and everyone's energy levels going up concomitantly, I expect this will be easier. In particular it'll be nice to be able to invite people with small children, as the small children will be able to romp around in the back garden (note to self: getting some balls and other miscellaneous toys is probably a good plan), despite the fact that it's not exactly set up for play. I figure as long as I'm not overly paranoid about the plant life, it's not a big deal.

I'm still plotting my housewarming party for June...

In the meantime, I'm going to finish my breakfast and get cracking. This stuff isn't going to do itself.