Mausoleum

A Holistic House To Ourselves

2009-10-03T15:16:33Z

The time has finally come for Tony to move out. He started packing and planning last week and asked me start taking him around to look at apartments.

I agreed to take him around on Wednesday, although I napped before-hand and wasn’t able to pry my eyes open until nearly 5pm. We didn’t get to get into more than one apartment but we definitely fot quite a few others weeded out by the looks of the neighborhoods alone.

This set of days off, I’m intending to take him to the Section 8 department to see if they can offer any assistance or guidance towards helpful programs to increase his options of where he can afford.

The next day, we’ll take him to view the apartments that weren’t weeded out from our neighborhood scoping this week. Hopefully, the Section 8 guidance may open up other possibilities as well.

We’re pretty excited. We weren’t expecting to get the chance to live alone together for another year or so. We can hardly wait to get started on everything. We know it’ll be a struggle, but it should be. We’re planning and rerouting our normal procedures to make it work and it’ll be so uplifting to feel like we’re working for something of our own.

Then, in another perspective, we’re very excited to help Tony get out on his own. We couldn’t be happier to help give him rides to apartments and look forward to inviting him over for meals and laundry and grocery trips in the future. And we’ll have to plan holiday get together as well. It wasn’t any fun when we didn’t have someone to invite over to them.

I keep putting it off but I really need to make my dental appointment. I’ve decided I want to go to a holistic one that practices without the destruction of metals and fluoride. There’s one in Cary and one in Charlotte. I just have to figure out which one I’d prefer to go to. I don’t know anyone that’s ever gone to a holistic dentist so I can’t ask any sort of advice. I’m just winging it. Of course these dentists are not on my in network list for insurance purposes but I don’t care. I’m worth it, hopefully I’ll thank myself for it later on in life.

Someday, I plan on seeing a naturopathic doctor and nutritionist to see what sort of things they would have to say. That will probably be well after I’m sure the dental adventures are out of the way. Maybe by the end of next summer.

By that time, my health insurance should be considerably worse, I think it declines in benefits for out of network once it renews for the year. I’ll have to renew that. Maybe check into one of those independent from the workplace savings plans to save up for my own bills. I know that I’m sick of paying over 40 dollars per check for something I don’t use since I don’t like chemicals and other unnatural weirdo things. I want quacks!!! We’ll see…I’m very interested in being taken care of naturally and seeing if they think things need adjusted to not cause problems as I age. I’ll be quite the 70 year old next year.

My Goal Phasing Out of Enriched, Refined Crap

2009-09-25T11:40:34Z

My aim over the next year or so is to phase enriched flour and refined sugar out completely from my diet.
I’m doing this because of multiple reasons. I’ve read many times before that our flour and sugar that have become common staples in everybody’s pantries hold not one ounce of nutritional value. They’ve gone through so many processes before they’ve made it to your shelves.

With flour, they’ve basically removed all value and substance from it to prolong it’s shelf life. Flour does not seem to go bad, it may get bugs in it but it doesn’t seem to grow mold or anything like other food would. After they’ve removed everything from it, they “enrich” it with vitamins and bleach. Yes, they put bleach in flour that we’re ingesting in everything from breads, pastries, gravy, cereal, to quick oats. Once you ingest flour, it merely sits as a sticky white substance in your intestines prohibiting you from absorbing much of other nutrients and vitamins in your system. So it offers you nothing and makes it harder for you than not consuming it at all.

Then, there’s the wonderful world of sugar. It’s seperated from it’s counterpart, molasses. Then, like most things in the grocery store, it’s also stripped of anything good and enriched or “refined” to have it’s extended shelf life. The strange thing I don’t like about it is how sugar is addictive and has been thought to cause blood problems (diabetes), depression, and mood fluctuations. If something is not doing anything nutritionally for you and it causes multiple problems, what is the point of ingesting it in the first place?

That brings me to my current state of trying to figure out how to work around it. I’ve narrowed down my intake of red meats and I cut out all the instant mixes and processed dinners where I can. The majority of things are from scratch, meal and drink wise.

We got into making our own breads, rolls, breadsticks, and muffins. Intentions are there to can and freeze from our garden.

Now, I want to further fix things by focusing on the ingredients that make up all of our recipes, one by one. If I can figure out how to bake the right consistencies using whole flours and naturally sweet things, I’ll be very happy and proud. I already know that I can substitute rye and barley flours for white flour and also that honey may be used in lieu if white sugar. From there, it’s adjusting the recipe around the new ingredients so that it still bakes properly and comes out with the “right” textures.

My first experiments are perfecting muffins. My most used recipe calls for flour, oats, sour milk, sugar, and typical other ingredients. I’ve been replacing the dry quick oats with steel cut oats which are much, much different. They require a half hour of cooking on the stove just to absorb enough moisture to be done. I decided to cook them first, then mix them in the recipe, and then bake them to see how that turned out. It ended up a little bland and a bit mushy. My next two tries will encompass cooking the oats on the stove again but cutting down on the milk the recipe calls for, and on the other one I will put in dry steel cut oats with no other alterations (if it comes out too dry, I know to try more milk next time).

Once I perfect the steel cut oats idea, I’ll perfect replacing the entirety of the flour, followed by the sugar. Then, just maybe, I’ll move onto redoing bread recipes.

Going Bananas

2009-09-24T10:20:11Z

I got this neat forward about how good bananas are for you and thought it was good enough for a post:

A professor at CCNY for a physiological psych class told his class about bananas. He said the expression ‘going bananas’ is from the effects of bananas on the brain. Read on:

Never put your banana in the refrigerator!

This is interesting.

After reading this, you’ll never look at a banana in the same way again.

Bananas contain three natural sugars – sucrose, fructose, and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained, and substantial boost of energy.

Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90 minute workout. No wonder the banana is the main leading fruit with the world’s leading athletes.

But energy isn’t the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.

Depression:

According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood, and generally make you feel happier.

PMS:

Forget the pills – eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels which can affect your mood.

Anemia:

High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure:

This unique, tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruits ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power:

200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school (England) were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation:

High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers:

One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn:

Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if your suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness:

Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito Bites:

Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves:

Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and chips. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers:

The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of it’s soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature Control:

Many other cultures see bananas as a ‘cooling’ fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand, for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD):

Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking & Tobacco Use:

Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6 and B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress:

Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain, and regulates your boy’s water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high potassium banana snack.

Strokes:

According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine, eatng bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes as much as 40z5z1

Warts:

Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape.

So, a abanana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe it’s time to change that well known phrase “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

Bananas may be the reason monkeys are so happy all the time.

One last addition:

Want a quick shine on your shoes? Take the inside of the banana skin and rub directly on the shoe…polish with dry cloth. Amazing fruit!

Nice to know.

My Journey Into Blucigs…an electronic adventure…

2009-09-23T08:06:00Z

This is a blog post entirely about Blucigs.

I first heard about them from my best friend in California. I had never heard of an electronic cigarette before. So she explained them to me. It boiled down to she didn’t have a firm opinion on whether I would enjoy them as a replacement to cigarettes or not. I really smoke a lot. They weren’t for everybody and she still craved normal cigarettes. So, I figured I was going to have to buy them and try it for myself.

So what are they? Basically, a battery powered atomizer that releases a water vapor laced with nicotine and flavour. Why should we choose this over a regular cigarette? Well, what made me want to try them was a variety of things. Their website boasts that they’re cheaper than cigarettes, there’s no smoke so you can inhale them anywhere, there’s no carcinogens and whatever other 2000+ chemicals to coat your lungs in, and there’s a thirty day money back guarantee.

Okay, they are a bit cheaper. Their website leads you in three different directions though for how long a cartridge will last. One spot says worth 15 cigarettes, another somewhere near 10, and yet another only 6. So I did my multiplication according to 6 cigarettes to be on the safe side. 10 cartridges equals 3 packs. In the end, it seemed to come out that, for 3 cartons of cigarettes worth, it would cost 80 dollars. I generally spend $93 on 3 cartons so that is instant savings IF the cartridges last long enough (which will take a few more days of trial to see).

So I placed my order on September 2 and was pleasantly surprised to find that they charge no shipping to the U.S. I got my confirmation email with tracking number included. My friend told me that her Blucigs kit took nearly a full 4-6 weeks to arrive although she got her tracking number within a few days as well. Needless to say, I was preparing myself to not receive them for a long time.

But I ended up receiving my blucigs near noon on Wednesday September 9th. I was preparing to go to bed as I work third shift, therefore sleeping my days away, when my package came. Of course I opened them right away and took my first test drags. One of menthol, the other of Java Jolt.

Obtained in this sleek little black box were the following items: 2 atomizers, 2 batteries, a wall charger, a USB charger, an “on the go” portable charger, and 5 flavour boxes (magnificent menthol, java jolt, vivid vanilla, classic tobacco, and cherry crush) each containing 5 cartridges.

I opted to use the menthol first as I’m particularly used to menthol cigarettes. The battery screws onto the atomizer, then the flavour cartridge slips over top of the atomizer.

The atomizer came with an empty flavour cartridge encasing it. I guess this was to make it easier to handle while attaching it to the battery. So that screwed on easily enough. I had the worry that I would screw it on too tightly and strip the threading but it has seemed fine so far. Once on, I popped off the empty cartridge revealing the metallic-foil looking atomizer tip. I took the fresh menthol flavour cartridge and pushed it on, noticing I had to apply some deal of force as it was tight. Then a slight twist, once it was on, to ensure that the tip punctured the flavour to release it.

The first drag was nothing. I didn’t get anything. I realized I wasn’t sucking hard enough. I was afraid of sucking too much and taking in too strong of a drag. The way I got used to doing it now is one slow drag, then a pause, then I slowly inhale it. I do this because otherwise it seems like too much on my throat at once.

Then, since I had an extra atomizer and battery included, I tried a Java on the other one. It had the faintest coffee like hint of flavour to it but that was it. I find myself very disappointed with the Java. Not near what I was expecting and it leaves me wanting so much more. When a Java is being used now, I constantly have to resort to the menthol to give me more.

Okay, so I woke up Wednesday night and tried out my Blucigs around the house off and on all night. They were nice, but I kept craving a real cigarette. I was able to space out real cigarettes but the craving didn’t fully subside until I’d finally give in and smoke one. So I just resolved to go back and forth between them that day. It was my first day, after all.

Now the true test begins…the coming work week. I woke up for work winded, like those days when you smoke way too much right before bed the night before, then you feel like you can’t possibly smoke another for a few hours (you smoke one 20 minutes later instead). I figure it happened because I was excited with the Blucigs and smoked on them all day, also having regular cigarettes off and on so that I almost doubled my intake. Then, I took advantage of the fact that I could smoke them in the bedroom without filling the room with stale smoke so, I occasionally puffed at them while having conversation with Marla until we fell asleep.

But anyhow, I mapped out this first week of work so that I wouldn’t find myself stranded at work with only a partially fulfilling electronic cigarette. No way I could take all these phone calls with a lack of cigarettes. So I brought 2 normal cigarettes with me. One for before work to start me off on the right foot, then I would smoke my Blucigs when necessary until the end of my lunch where I would indulge in my second cigarette. That would leave my last break along with the drive home to rely on the Blucigs. Then I would cave when I got home and smoke my normal cigarettes again. The first two days worked out great doing this.

I find I really miss my normal cigarettes. But I also realized I wasn’t changing my cartridges often enough. They would stop giving me a sensation in my throat that I needed to feel as part of my habit and I couldn’t understand it. But I thought about it and realized I should be going through one and a half cartridges per day at my normal rate of around 10 cigarettes. I hadn’t replaced these since I put them on a day and a half ago. I replaced both cartridges and they got quite a bit better.

A Sad Growing Season

2009-09-08T14:20:55Z

Posts have been slow lately as I’ve been busy with many things. Gardening, an addiction to applications, and much reading about the shadow government and mind control devices in use.

We’ll only speak about the gardening in this post.

Regretfully, most things we’ve planted have not been fruiting that well. For one thing, we only worked the soil to a depth of 4 inches with most beds. Maybe due to laziness as this is the year we had to freshly dig up each bed, one after another. We should have known better since we are stuck in the south with this wonderfully dense compacted clay under our soils. Another thing was we couldn’t really afford to buy organic fertilizer or compost so, if the soil is lacking nutrients, we haven’t amended it.

Pretty much we’ve gotten our few servings of green beans before those plants yellowed, then we got a few radishes and beets. The Zucchini was producing one fruit a day between three plants but that began to wither and stopped growing. The peppers seem to constantly have white flowers but only one is growing a pepper behind it. The beefsteak tomatoes each have about 4 nice sized tomatoes on them but it seems to take them weeks to turn red. I don’t even want to get into the three or four rounds of cucumbers that we’ve unsuccessfully tried to get established.

That leaves us with the only truly fruitful items being the indeterminate cherry tomato vine (over 5 feet and still twining) and the many kitchen herbs we’ve planted throughout the months. Among the good ones, we have spicy globe basil, sweet basil, ground crawling oregano, flat leaf and curly parsley, rosemary, and thyme.

It’s rather disappointing to have such a minimal production when my desires for this season had been so high when we began. I am well aware that this is our “learning” summer. We’re starting out with 30 different plants, simultaneously, with all sorts of different steps to care for them so, of course, they’re all not doing as well as they could be. I’m happy with what we’ve gotten but I want more. I want our yard filled to the borders with vegetables and herbs and flowers, mostly useful as well as aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Time and trials will improve our successes, I hope.

Several weeks ago, I made a new garden bed. This time, I made myself dig the hole two feet deep, five feet long, and two to three feet wide to ensure that the roots of anything palnted would have fully worked soil all over. So I unearthed all this dirt, then I layered the bottom of the hole with branches and twigs from around the yard to perhaps provide better drainage and something to break down to give the soil nutrients from within. We’ll see if this aids plantings any.

It has now become one of our cold weather crop areas. Broccoli and brussels sprouts are the main thing in there, two bush cucumber plants, and various spots of radishes and carrots to test it out to see how root vegetables will do.

I’ll post more pictures if the plants actually look healthy this time around.

Tarot, Toil, and Tumultuousness

2009-07-11T10:05:46Z

Things have been out of routine lately ever since we got back from our trip to Pennsylvania. We had quite a nice visit. Overpacked, as usual, with just trying to fit all the relatives in. We actually wished we had more time to do more. We’ve concluded that next year we’ll try to set aside two weeks. One just doesn’t cut it anymore.

At the last minute, basically the night before our trip, Marla’s mom called and begged her dad to come up and visit. She didn’t relent until he agreed so he accompanied us up in the van.

Luckily, Angel had gotten herself an apartment just in time and he was able to stay the nights there. We had hoped he might want to move in with her by the end of the week but wouldn’t do it. I guess he told them that they were newlyweds so they needed their alone time and privacy. I guess Marla and I get jipped since we didn’t get married. Who cares about our lives. Someday we’ll have our privacy. I’m just not expecting it for eons.

We got to visit with Chris and his family for a bit, my parents at another point, and Marla’s mom while slaving over a wedding cake with senseless fondant all over the place. Never saw a bigger waste of time and money than fondant. I will never help with another. Another day we hung out with my MeMa and PapPap and discussed gardens, depressions, and houses (and what objects they had pulled out of their door frames that others had used as some form of insulation). We even had enough time for the people we never get to visit much with such as my cousin and aunt, and Marla’s friends.

We got back after a lengthy nap in the car not even halfway. Got caught up on sleep and the gardening. All of our seeds on the backporch died off in the heat and lack of water but that was expected. I spent hours reorganising and replanting for the next batches. I’m hoping for eggplant and spinach to fill up our near empty bed.

Then, I made the mistake of logging into Facebooks application entitled Restaurant City. Boy is that mindless, fun, and a hideous waste of my time. I get such bad addictions. I’m hoping this one wanes rather quickly.

Our third cat, courtesy of my brother, has been quite a hellion the past month or so. He reached the age where he think everything in the house must be marked as his. He lifts his butt and you see an aimed stream land on something you didn’t really want ruined. We’ve talked it over and we are going to get him neutered. We just hope we’re not too late. I know they don’t stop doing it completely once they’ve started. We hope it’ll at least dampen the urge. I can’t take cleaning up after him 5 times every day for the rest of his life.

About the same time that the urine stench began taking over all that is in our house, Marla’s cousin asked us to allow him to move in. I thought long and hard about it, then I had Marla think a lot about it, and we came to an ultimate answer of No. I tried to be very truthful and explained to him why I wouldn’t go for it. We haven’t the room, we haven’t the money, and the biggest reason was that we didn’t need another person in the house. We’ve been trying to live alone, just the two of us, since we’ve gotten here and there’s always someone who wants to be involved. I went on to say that we had one too many now and didn’t want another added. He offered to move out with Marla’s dad and they’d help each other but, when we asked her dad about it, all he would say was that her cousin could afford it on his own. So there went that idea.

I told him the answer was still no after reconsidering it for quite some time. He must have gotten upset because he never sent us another message and we “heard” that he let Marla’s dad in on why we didn’t want another boarder. I felt bad that it came out in that way but it was all honest. I don’t want to live with people. Just Marla. I want to have my own life and my own house and share it with the one I love. I want to have a chance at knowing how it feels to have privacy and “live on my own“. I’ve never done it yet and it kills me.

Needless to say, I was very relieved when that situation was over. I usually make the wrong decisions no matter how long and hard I think about them but I think I made the right one there. Now, if I could just get the rest of my issues lined up.

I haven’t done my Feng Shui journals since before our visit but I have gotten back into tarot readings thanks to all the decision making going on. I’m trying to do the daily readings so I can get a better idea of what each of the cards can pertain to.

From there, I’ve branched off a bit into learning about the Golden Dawn. Thanks to my brother, again, I have two thick Golden Dawn books I’ve borrowed to pore through at my leisure. And I’m excited that, not only do I get to be enlightened as to what they practice and how they view things, but I get to learn the Qabbalah as I go.

That’s all the updates I can stomach for now…

Feng Shui for your Cemetery

2009-06-09T07:25:06Z

Marla recently got an ebook somewhere on the internet all about Feng Shui for money. She’s been doing different practices from it for the past week or so and it got me interested in doing them. It’s inspired me to make a new category on my blog called Feng Shui for your Cemetery. In it, I’ll be listing what my assignment is and I’ll publish each essay as I get them done. I think it will be really neat. What could it hurt?

I guess it’s all about dealing with your mindset and relationship with money and your finances. It seems like it tries to make you think realistically and positively and slowly makes you start doing something about your situation physically and mentally.

So without further adieu, here is my first assignment:

We’re instructed to start a “Prosperity Journal“.

I begin the first page by writing a paragraph on what wealth is for me. Here is my paragraph:

Wealth is irritating. You can’t do much of anything without it in this day and age. You’re encouraged to work your ass off to get enough of it to manage your life. It’s basically required to fund food and shelter and, if you’re lucky, anything else. When you do have more than enough of it, providing you’re not already rich, you feel too over worked and stressed out to truly enjoy it. I despise the way society makes you rely on wealth and covet more of it than you can have.

Now, if you had to rate your satisfaction with money on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest…

Mine is, of course, a 1.

Next up, “my relationship with money”. What’s working, what feels good, what’s “not right”. We start our next paragraph with “My present relationship with money is“…

…not fun. I’m doing nothing but working all the time, sometimes, to pull it in only to watch the entire paycheck go out the window within a day of receiving it. It doesn’t seem fair to put so much effort into bringing in so little. And what would money matter for if I was able to live off the land. To grow what I needed to consume and possibly do a “trade” to barter with other people for what else I would need. I get depressed when I think about money and I don’t like that. At times, I feel like I make enough and do okay, but there’s always something waiting to go wrong.

Stay tuned for more excerpts of my essays and practices…

The Downward Tori

2009-06-06T00:38:19Z

Tori Amos has come out with another new album, Abnormally Attracted To Sin. I used to be excited and euphoric whenever this would happen but that has become a thing of the past.

abnormally attracted to sin

Her music has changed, it doesn’t carry that driving passion that it did once before. I used to feel both excruciatingly miserable and overjoyed when I’d listen to her but now it’s just there. Pleasant. Yet passive in the background. Like elevator music.

Sure, I know, she had her little girl finally after so many trials and miscarriages and that changed everything. She moved into a land filled with faeries in Cornwall equipped with her own recording studio and her life is now perfect. For me, it has all gone emotionally downhill.

Her music direction changed with everything and now there must be a different fan base existing for her. I find myself still peeking around the corner at her as each new set of songs comes out with it’s own tour and trinkets to follow. I grab the latest rip from the internet to give it a test but I can never muster up the money to actually spend on her newer albums. It’s depressing and nice. I’m mad that I can’t enjoy her in the present like I used to but I am glad that she’s still going, that she’s got a wonderful life to inspire this new wave of sound, whether I like it or not. And I think it’s wonderful that she turns each project into a big picture of art and stories and tries to proclaim things she feels are important to get out there.

I guess I’ll always check out what she’s up to as long as she keeps going but I’m not so impulsive when it comes to buying a concert ticket for $60 where I can’t leave for the night without first buying the latest shirt and necklace to showcase my experience.

I find it a bit depressing that all of my long term loves take this downward spin. The first to go down was Shirley Manson. That was soon followed by PJ Harvey and Nine Inch Nails. Switchblade Sypmphony and Drain STH broke up. Le Tigre went ultra pop. Then Tori produces five albums in a row that just don’t do it. What are we supposed to do?

At least Shirley Manson came back to drive us absolutely mad as a Terminator T-1001 in the Sarah Connor Chronicles television series, but even that has been doomed and then cancelled as far as we fans know.

All I can say is at least I have found The L Word to take my mind off of all that has transpired since my world ended.

Dining On A Moonlit Vegetable

2009-06-06T00:38:59Z

Lot’s of yard work has been going on. A month ago, it seemed to rain every single time I had off. Then I worked most of my days off one week so that I could take a trip to California the week after.

When I got back, all our seedlings were begging to be planted since they’ve been slowly growing on our back porch. Ever since then, I’ve been using almost every day off preparing the yard for them. It’s taking a lot longer than I would have ever thought.

I spent at least five hours on the side of the house one day clearing out somewhere between ten to fifteen feet of grass and vines. The old owners had only thrown vine plants that spread in the space and crab grass overtook everything in between so it was a lot of work. Tony helped quite a bit, although he shouldn’t have with his bad back. I like to do most things by myself because it’s more fun but I would have been at that side twice as long if left to my own devices.

That part finally got done so I rushed out some tomato and pepper plants to try it out. I thought about it a lot and it seemed to get the most afternoon sun on that side of the house. Tomatoes and peppers thrive on direct sunlight so it seemed like a good choice.

The next day, I read up on the perfect companion plants to use alongside of them and decided on Sweet Basil, Purple Basil, and Parsley. They enhance the flavours of tomoatoes and peppers and also attract bugs that munch on pests which typically attack these fruit plants.

I’m researching a lot on everything and find that I lean more and more towards companion planting. The perfect way to naturally get rid of pests that destroy your things. Every plant attracts certain bugs and repels others. It’s all about knowing what to plant near what (and vice versa) to keep your ecosystem going wonderfully. No chemicals. Plenty of fun. It’s such a puzzle though. Some roots rot from too much water, some need partial or direct sun, some thrive in the shade, et cetera. Crazy to try and retain it all. I’ll be starting a notebook on it as soon as I can get my procrastinating scantily clad self around to it.

I’m proud to say that one of the last sets of my days off, we finally finished preparing the beds for the cucumbers, garden beans, and peas. We couldn’t afford the amount of cages and trellises it would have taken to allow them to climb up so I rigged up some twine across the cheap lantern posts you get from the dollar tree and we’ll see how that works. 4 bucks as opposed to 40.

I think the peas have had it as they were on the back porch for so long. They have a grey look to them and they’re supposed to be planted outside when it’s cooler than it is now. And, regretfully, the cucumber leaves have yellowed since we put them out. Not sure how they’ll be surviving. It seems like we have to continuously germinate replacement plants. By the time they grow large enough to be outside, the beds haven’t been entirely ready. Then, they grow too much for their containers and the transplant shock does them in. Hopefully that will look better for us next round.

All but two of the tomato plants have succumbed to the lack of water we give them at times. They’re compost for the rest of the bed now. We have six more beginning to thrive on the back porch along with several pepper plants as well. They should be ready in another week or so. Wish us luck.

A Message to Homophobes

2009-05-27T14:49:54Z

A Message For Homophobes
by nonightfan