Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Feel like screaming? I do. I don't think this life has ever been more chaotic. Is it the moon? the weather?
My grandmother ran a house, farmed, crocheted an afghan for every sentient being in the state of Kansas, tatted little lacy things for all of her tables, chairs, sofas, beds, cooked every meal from scratch, made most of her clothes and matching outfits for all of her grandkids, did church work, and still had time to visit and take little trips.
I've got a house, a garden, and a business and I'm losing my mind. So what's up in your world? What's keeping you (too) busy? Me . . .
Forget trying to write 30 minutes a day. What was that woman thinking? Oh, and "don't put your writing in a blog, my dear, it will forever be ineligible for any serious publishing." I'm thinking fuck that, but I don't have any time to write anyway. Lots of stuff running around in my head, no outlet. That probably contributes to the crazy.
But the fucking snow peas contribute to the crazy, too. What is is it with peas? Every year I try to grow sugar snaps and snow peas, no luck. Our weather is notoriously unpredictable: 90 degrees one day, 50 the next. The peas hate it and now they're twisted green stubs thick with aphids.
And about those aphids. Is there a more repulsive little bug than those nasty things? Fat, grotesquely swollen (with my plants' juices, the bastards), thick as fleas on the most tender parts of my plants. Hate them. For some reason, I can't see them without thinking of one of those awful diseases the Lutheran missionaries used to terrify us: trachoma. Click for a bad case of the willies.
The little bit of grass I've got in the garden is above ankle high. It has rained every day for the last 14 and had the sun not come out for an hour on Thursday, I'd likely be locked up now. Regular doses of sun are mandatory for mental health, mine anyway. I don't know how folks live in cloudy places. I'd would truly be homicidal.
A lifelong dumpster diver, I was delighted to come across 50 ~ fifty ~ stems of luscious oriental lilies which have filled the house with their marvelous jasminey spicy scent for the last week. Yay!
Fucking Max Baucus, traitor. And the rest of these right wing fuckers, both Democrat and Republican, who are going to ensure that we will never get health care reform. That may be contributing to my homicidal urges.
I just finished Kite Runner and I wasn't sure I was going to ever quit crying. I'm in the middle of The Space Between Us, Under the Tuscan Sun, and One Hundred & One Beautiful Small Towns in Mexico (amazing places). What are you reading?
Mexico! Soon! Yay!
Flowers everywhere, tons of roses, lilies, the Reverend Bowring Toadflax sending up white spires in huge sweeps, and the peonies. Peonies are thick this year, and gorgeous. Lots of shades of pink, that classic white with the red splotch, and the dark, rich, wine red, my favorite. They're probably my favorite plant except for the roses. Oh, and the columbines. And lilies. Well, that spicy dianthus ~ delicious.
So the tomato transplants I started from seed are planted, but the peppers never did a thing, so I bought some. Sigh. We've got corn, summer and winter squash, turnips, carrots, radishes, red, yellow, white and blue potatoes, pole beans, lettuce, chard, and cucumbers. We pulled up a massive pile of kale that overwintered and sauteed it into submission with olive oil and garlic. A little sea salt and we had a tasty spring-time mess of greens.
So you? What are you up to? Though I wouldn't wish it on anyone else, I hope that someone's feeling as frantic and undone as I am? Tell, please.
My grandmother ran a house, farmed, crocheted an afghan for every sentient being in the state of Kansas, tatted little lacy things for all of her tables, chairs, sofas, beds, cooked every meal from scratch, made most of her clothes and matching outfits for all of her grandkids, did church work, and still had time to visit and take little trips.
I've got a house, a garden, and a business and I'm losing my mind. So what's up in your world? What's keeping you (too) busy? Me . . .
Forget trying to write 30 minutes a day. What was that woman thinking? Oh, and "don't put your writing in a blog, my dear, it will forever be ineligible for any serious publishing." I'm thinking fuck that, but I don't have any time to write anyway. Lots of stuff running around in my head, no outlet. That probably contributes to the crazy.
But the fucking snow peas contribute to the crazy, too. What is is it with peas? Every year I try to grow sugar snaps and snow peas, no luck. Our weather is notoriously unpredictable: 90 degrees one day, 50 the next. The peas hate it and now they're twisted green stubs thick with aphids.
And about those aphids. Is there a more repulsive little bug than those nasty things? Fat, grotesquely swollen (with my plants' juices, the bastards), thick as fleas on the most tender parts of my plants. Hate them. For some reason, I can't see them without thinking of one of those awful diseases the Lutheran missionaries used to terrify us: trachoma. Click for a bad case of the willies.
The little bit of grass I've got in the garden is above ankle high. It has rained every day for the last 14 and had the sun not come out for an hour on Thursday, I'd likely be locked up now. Regular doses of sun are mandatory for mental health, mine anyway. I don't know how folks live in cloudy places. I'd would truly be homicidal.
A lifelong dumpster diver, I was delighted to come across 50 ~ fifty ~ stems of luscious oriental lilies which have filled the house with their marvelous jasminey spicy scent for the last week. Yay!
Fucking Max Baucus, traitor. And the rest of these right wing fuckers, both Democrat and Republican, who are going to ensure that we will never get health care reform. That may be contributing to my homicidal urges.
I just finished Kite Runner and I wasn't sure I was going to ever quit crying. I'm in the middle of The Space Between Us, Under the Tuscan Sun, and One Hundred & One Beautiful Small Towns in Mexico (amazing places). What are you reading?
Mexico! Soon! Yay!
Flowers everywhere, tons of roses, lilies, the Reverend Bowring Toadflax sending up white spires in huge sweeps, and the peonies. Peonies are thick this year, and gorgeous. Lots of shades of pink, that classic white with the red splotch, and the dark, rich, wine red, my favorite. They're probably my favorite plant except for the roses. Oh, and the columbines. And lilies. Well, that spicy dianthus ~ delicious.
So the tomato transplants I started from seed are planted, but the peppers never did a thing, so I bought some. Sigh. We've got corn, summer and winter squash, turnips, carrots, radishes, red, yellow, white and blue potatoes, pole beans, lettuce, chard, and cucumbers. We pulled up a massive pile of kale that overwintered and sauteed it into submission with olive oil and garlic. A little sea salt and we had a tasty spring-time mess of greens.
So you? What are you up to? Though I wouldn't wish it on anyone else, I hope that someone's feeling as frantic and undone as I am? Tell, please.
Labels: crazy days, gardening, too much to do
posted by BigAssBelle at 2:25 PM
17 Comments:
Thank goodness you're back. I was starting to go into serious withdrawal.
Sorry to hear that you're going round the bend. No advice to proffer. Just hang on. You've got an intrepid band of followers on the Internet who are rooting for you!
The weather here in Tranna (that's how we locals pronounce Toronto) is just as crazy as in your neck of the woods. Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny 23C (can't remember what that is in Fahrenheit anymore). Today it's chilly and we had a lovely hail storm in the morning. The streets looked like they were covered in little styrofoam packing balls.
You're right about Baucus. I've been following this abomination via the Mahablog (read it, it's great!). As always, my condolences to the majority of Americans who know that universal health care is not a KGB plot. I invite you to come and meet the lovely young Dr. Lee who happily sewed up the finger tip that I almost sliced off trying to separate an avocado from its pit. It cost me nothing but the taxes that I cheerfully pay.
Maybe you should wait a little bit before going to Mexico...
I haven't read Kite Runner. I don't want to cry. I read murder mysteries. Go figure. I do, however, recommend the Kurt Wallender series by Swedish author Henning Mankell.
What am I up to? Self-employment is chugging along. Firm days of work are down by a lot this month, but there's still time to pick up a few more. Fortunately, it's good work, so I'm OK, even if the numbers aren't stellar.
I'm enjoying my own blogging too, trying to think up an interesting topic a few times a week...
Tomorrow I'm jetting off for two amazing days in Saskatchewan. Wake me up when the plane lands back home.
So glad to see you back!
yes, glad to see something from you. you've given me a new insult for peeps i don't like - and it doesn't involve a cuss word and it's worse than one anyway: fat, swollen aphid.
LOL!!!!
Have you tried Chocolate?
I've never seen an aphid.
My busy-ness:
-Work
-co-chairing a synagogue committee
-board member of community theater
-teaching yoga
-regular gym workouts
-weekly dance class
-somewhere in all this: dinner with friends, post daily on blog, grocery shopping, stay politically active, attend theater, and read everyone else's blogs.
hmmm I'm going a little stir crazy from boredom. I'm tackling the house hold projects that I can handle in "my condition". And I'm finding any little excuse I can to get out of the house.
Granted, in 5 weeks I'm going to be a sleep deprived zombie as I nurse a newborn around the clock. So I think I'm going through the irritating calm before the inevitable storm.
Also, we just returned from the Outer Banks and after having someone else make the beds and pick up the wet towels, I'm feeling pretty relaxed. :)
I am looking forward to a female blogger meetup tonight in LA. Invite only and frankly I was surprised to get an invite as I am a very small tadpole in the female sea of bloggers. ;)
Can't wait to blog about it lol.
D@mn those people who tell gifted writers to stop posting to their blogs! argh
Nice to see you back.
always a pleasure to read you! thanks
do a search for "live ladybugs"
they ARE the answer to your aphids
first saw them used as aphid control in 1972
ladybugs saved my family's vegetable garden that year
Hello, Sweetums. I want to say hello even though I really have to go to bed NOW... I'm not going to sleep early enough lately and it's just ridiculous when the alarm goes off. I need to be in bed at farmers' hours in my ideal life.
So NICE to see something from you, but I'm sorry to hear that you're frantic! We must trade emails soon. When are you off to Mexico? My friend who has a house postponed his month-long trip that was to start this weekend to July because of all the silly flu stuff.
Enjoy your weekend if I don't drop a line before then!
Frantic and undone???? Normal around here! I'm busier now that I am retired...how did I do all of this when I was working? And I didn't have a blog either!
-trying to find something intelligent to write about
-gardening, gardening and some more gardening.....
-taking care of grandgirls on the weekends...sometimes I drive 40 mi. to take them to school on Mon. am if their Mom works Sun. night
-keeping up with the house, and two design projects
-good thing you don't live here...I have a lot of fog...that's why we love Mexico!
-trying to wrap my mind around the Gop...who are they now, anyway? so far right, they may fall off the map! Nothing they say makes sense....
-reading mysteries until I can stomach KITE RUNNER.........
-loving cooking with the results of my garden!
-trying to find health care for under $700 a mo. now that I am retired and not yet 65......scary!
Oh Lord, those aphids ARE bloodsucking parasites that sneak in during the night and savage your well laid plants! I would love to know if the ladybugs really work, because they try to kill my plants every year and succeed many times. The angst you talk about in regards to writing is one that all of us creative types can relate to. I have two full screenplays locked inside my head, and have storyboarded one in a notebook. But life comes along and yanks me by the hand to places I don't want to go. I fantasize about stealing away to a cottage in the woods where I can write all day and sip tea, and no one will bother me. I know there are fancy programs called "Artist in Residence" but what about the rest of us that have that teensy problem of a job that won't be there when we come back? Or that pesky mortgage? I think it comes down to dicipline and getting up at ungodly hours to sit at the keyboard until you can cough up some piece of writing that isn't just crap. When will I start?
Hi BAB! Hang in there; crazy seems to be going around a lot these days. You sound like a superstar to me! I read that you have been getting a lot of rain but have you tried spraying the aphids off the ppea plants with a hose. They are not ambulatory enough to climb back on if you dislodge them. New ones will hatch in time but spray some more. If nothing else, you will probably get a chuckle yourself out of spraying the hose in the rain.....whether or not neighbors can see you! Kev in Atl
I'm reading Brad Gooch's bio of Flannery O'Connor. I recommend it, but this is one instance in which it is essential that you first read a good amount of F.O.'s short stories and novels.
When aphids attack our hibiscus tree in our sunroom, we drag the huge pot into the shower and hose them away. It's really the only way to deal with them short of poison which the plants dislike.
Insecticidal soap, like Safe, or make your own and spray it on...worked on my plants. There's also one that feeds as well, especially loved by roses!
Oh, Kite Runner. Yes, a tough one, but very good. Worth it. Have you read the other one?
I'm currently rereading Beloved adn The Bluest Eye, T. Morrison. It's been years for both.
I don't want to cry, either. Just read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. It was wonderful, can't wait to read his next book when it's translated to english.
I hope you don't mind me saying so, but I think you fetishize Mexico.
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