After a bumpy start to my evening, I finally managed to be calm, even cheerful, for most of the night. I've had a crockpot meal cooking, and several windows open to let in the fresh (and cold!--49 degrees) air. It smells like fall in our house, with the combination of fresh cold air and cooking pork, onions, and green chiles. That's great, the smell of fall, and it makes me happy.
But then I got a headache spike a little after 2 AM. It wasn't terrible, and it resolved after a few minutes, so I attributed it to the weather, as we've got a couple squall lines moving through. But then I felt anxious out of the blue. I was working--editing--and felt anxious, then started thinking about the hospital and going in for my D&C last fall. (It was a warm and rainy night when we went to the hospital with my heavy bleeding, but the next afternoon when they wheeled me down for surgery, they had the doors to the basement open and I talked with one of the doctors about how great the new first cold air of fall is, because it had just arrived that morning.) My feelings of anxiety, like my pain spike, went away fairly quickly and are mostly gone now, but a trace of them lingers, in the way that the feel of a particularly peculiar dream hangs around for a few hours after you wake up.
I wonder if these ups and downs are going to be common for the next few weeks, over the anniversary of...well, anniversaries, I guess...of the hospitalization for the miscarriage, the D&C, the beginning of my vision loss, my weeks of pain, and my eye surgery. It's been nearly a year since I've driven a car. Nearly a year since I've been able to look at my husband's face and see all its details all at once without having to shift my gaze just so.
Normally, I love fall. This year, I'm not sure how it's going to go. The next month promises to be an interesting revisit to an...interesting combination of bad and good.
Normally, I might expound upon the thought that's been chasing around in my head about autumn being the death of things preparing for rest and rebirth, and the cycle of life and healing, but tonight, I think I'll leave that for another time.
*Stringham high: autumn
*Stringham low: not-so-happy anniversaries (see above)
*Stringham super high: happy anniversaries (my parents' 36th year of marriage, my friend B's 1st year of marriage, my and Mike's 7th year of being together)
**Title links to a song that I'd like to "dedicate" in honor of those happy anniversaries and to our child, whom we never got to meet.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
This Spud's for You
M and I dug up our 4 rows of potatoes this evening. We were fairly disappointed after our first row--golds. Most of them had been nibbled on by mice and were being further broken down by nature's composting helpers. We managed to save a few for "immediate" use, but we certainly didn't get a return on our investment. Not enough for storage to even register on our scale when we tried to weigh them.
At the end of that first row was a transplant or two we had discovered early in the year as volunteers in other parts of the garden--a couple of reds. They did really well, those two. They produced almost as many potatoes as the entire row of golds.
The second row was our russets. Not a huge number of potatoes, but boy, were those things big! We got a paper grocery bag of russets, 17.5 pounds. They won't go very far, but they'll store. Still, we were wondering if the potatoes were a return on investment, as russets aren't really expensive in the store.
The third row proved to be much more fruitful. This was a row of reds. They went hog wild. Most of them were nibble free and had grown without snarls and damage. (Yay!) We had so many potatoes from this row that when M started to uncover the fourth row, I had to sit down to clean and sort the reds from this row. It was certainly more than just a handful of potatoes to wipe the dirt and bugs off of...it was an entire pile. Now we were thinking we may have gotten our investment back in seed potatoes and straw and fertilizer--not to mention the richness that the potatoes and straw seemed to be adding to our once low-nutrient soil. It was clear where the potatoes were, as the soil was much darker and richer, though still more compact than we'd like.
M dug up the fourth row while I cleaned all the reds. We knew the fourth row wouldn't be too productive, as the plants hadn't gotten very large this year, but M was digging and uncovering almost the entire time I was cleaning that huge pile of reds. This row seemed a mixture of russets and reds for some reason. Again, we had more of these damaged like the first row.
It seems our experiment of simply working up the first inch or two of soil and mixing in some fertilizer worked. We simply laid the seed potatoes on that softer earth and covered with straw, then kept covering the plants with straw as they grew. Yes, that was much better for growing spuds this year than putting them in the heavy, clay-like, waterlogged soil so prevalent on our property.
All told, we brought in a lot of potatoes this year:
21.5 lbs (mixed) for "immediate" use
8.5 lbs small reds
17 lbs medium reds
11 lbs large reds
17.5 lbs russets
Grand total: 75.5 lbs of spuds. With all those tasty reds, we're going to have a lot of garlic mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!
* Stringham high: gardening
* Stringham low: disappointing gold potatoes
* Stringham super-high: almost half of M's body weight in potatoes for the year!
At the end of that first row was a transplant or two we had discovered early in the year as volunteers in other parts of the garden--a couple of reds. They did really well, those two. They produced almost as many potatoes as the entire row of golds.
The second row was our russets. Not a huge number of potatoes, but boy, were those things big! We got a paper grocery bag of russets, 17.5 pounds. They won't go very far, but they'll store. Still, we were wondering if the potatoes were a return on investment, as russets aren't really expensive in the store.
The third row proved to be much more fruitful. This was a row of reds. They went hog wild. Most of them were nibble free and had grown without snarls and damage. (Yay!) We had so many potatoes from this row that when M started to uncover the fourth row, I had to sit down to clean and sort the reds from this row. It was certainly more than just a handful of potatoes to wipe the dirt and bugs off of...it was an entire pile. Now we were thinking we may have gotten our investment back in seed potatoes and straw and fertilizer--not to mention the richness that the potatoes and straw seemed to be adding to our once low-nutrient soil. It was clear where the potatoes were, as the soil was much darker and richer, though still more compact than we'd like.
M dug up the fourth row while I cleaned all the reds. We knew the fourth row wouldn't be too productive, as the plants hadn't gotten very large this year, but M was digging and uncovering almost the entire time I was cleaning that huge pile of reds. This row seemed a mixture of russets and reds for some reason. Again, we had more of these damaged like the first row.
It seems our experiment of simply working up the first inch or two of soil and mixing in some fertilizer worked. We simply laid the seed potatoes on that softer earth and covered with straw, then kept covering the plants with straw as they grew. Yes, that was much better for growing spuds this year than putting them in the heavy, clay-like, waterlogged soil so prevalent on our property.
All told, we brought in a lot of potatoes this year:
21.5 lbs (mixed) for "immediate" use
8.5 lbs small reds
17 lbs medium reds
11 lbs large reds
17.5 lbs russets
Grand total: 75.5 lbs of spuds. With all those tasty reds, we're going to have a lot of garlic mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!
* Stringham high: gardening
* Stringham low: disappointing gold potatoes
* Stringham super-high: almost half of M's body weight in potatoes for the year!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
My Moment of (un)Zen
I'd like to say I'm posting about the woes of garden pests.
But what I'm really posting about today, dear reader, is my heebie-jeebies.
From our driveway today, I saw the allure of bright red globes.
They peeked at me through dense foliage, calling my name. Ah, more tomatoes! I thought. I moved toward them and started collecting them. Then my hand stopped just short of possibly the biggest tomato hornworm I've ever seen.
Yes, I was raised in the country. Yes, I should be immune to such things. I had an aunt who used to play with snakes. Seriously. I was never one of those kids who played with bugs and worms and caterpillars as a kid. You know why? Worms and caterpillars and grubs all give me the heebie-jeebies. Maggots too. Snakes, too, though only when they move. (I won't just kill things I don't like, either. I recognize their importance in the grand scheme. I just don't want to touch them. And I really prefer not to see them.) Tomato hornworms, though, they are garden pests, mostly not at all beneficial. Still, I don't like killing them. And they don't even move much--they mostly just get in the way while they look like giant bumps on logs. Scratch that. They look like giant logs attached to much smaller logs. But they still give me the heebie-jeebies. Probably because they camouflage so well. Right next to the tasty, tasty tomatoes. Last year, we watched for them, but they covered well. We teamed up, and M took down the worms while I reached around the spiders and spiderwebs (those were good--we wanted to leave them intact). I dealt with his heebie-jeebies, he dealt with mine. But now M's at work and the hornworms have come out in force in the past 5 days. They're everywhere. I saw no less than 8 without having to look for them. No small feat, considering my damaged eyes. Of course, they've stripped the foliage off the tops of all the tomato plants, so they aren't hiding as well as they did last year when only one or two usually made it to adulthood. (Three or four are "hiding" in this picture.)
Well, here we were thinking we had good soil and such and were having no problems with the worms this year. Guess we thought wrong. I sent pictures this evening to M at work to show him how many there were, and how huge they were. I guess he's having a rough day, because he told me to "Just get a pair of f**king scissors and kill them." Ew. First off, they're huge. Second, ew. Third, I know they'll pop all over me if I cut them. Fourth, ew. Fifth, when did I ever tell him to just get over it and smash the damn spider? Sixth, scratch that last question; it might come back to haunt me.
Still, I might have been okay. Honestly, I went back after seeing the first worm. I thought maybe I could get most of the tomatoes and just leave a few until M gets home to help me. That was when I saw all the others. And I saw some of them eating (like these two).
Which is to say, I saw their heads moving as they sucked on green tomatoes. That was the worst. Ick. Ick, ick, ick.
Okay, if you aren't already, you are more than welcome to laugh at me now. I just had to share, because I couldn't scream at the top of my lungs outside how disgusting that was.
* Stringham high: Yummy, gorgeous, red, ripe tomatoes.
* Stringham low: Hornworms
* Stringham super-high: Possible opportunity to work a contract job for a few months (meaning not losing 45% of my money off the top to taxes of one sort or another)...
But what I'm really posting about today, dear reader, is my heebie-jeebies.
From our driveway today, I saw the allure of bright red globes.
They peeked at me through dense foliage, calling my name. Ah, more tomatoes! I thought. I moved toward them and started collecting them. Then my hand stopped just short of possibly the biggest tomato hornworm I've ever seen.
Yes, I was raised in the country. Yes, I should be immune to such things. I had an aunt who used to play with snakes. Seriously. I was never one of those kids who played with bugs and worms and caterpillars as a kid. You know why? Worms and caterpillars and grubs all give me the heebie-jeebies. Maggots too. Snakes, too, though only when they move. (I won't just kill things I don't like, either. I recognize their importance in the grand scheme. I just don't want to touch them. And I really prefer not to see them.) Tomato hornworms, though, they are garden pests, mostly not at all beneficial. Still, I don't like killing them. And they don't even move much--they mostly just get in the way while they look like giant bumps on logs. Scratch that. They look like giant logs attached to much smaller logs. But they still give me the heebie-jeebies. Probably because they camouflage so well. Right next to the tasty, tasty tomatoes. Last year, we watched for them, but they covered well. We teamed up, and M took down the worms while I reached around the spiders and spiderwebs (those were good--we wanted to leave them intact). I dealt with his heebie-jeebies, he dealt with mine. But now M's at work and the hornworms have come out in force in the past 5 days. They're everywhere. I saw no less than 8 without having to look for them. No small feat, considering my damaged eyes. Of course, they've stripped the foliage off the tops of all the tomato plants, so they aren't hiding as well as they did last year when only one or two usually made it to adulthood. (Three or four are "hiding" in this picture.)
Well, here we were thinking we had good soil and such and were having no problems with the worms this year. Guess we thought wrong. I sent pictures this evening to M at work to show him how many there were, and how huge they were. I guess he's having a rough day, because he told me to "Just get a pair of f**king scissors and kill them." Ew. First off, they're huge. Second, ew. Third, I know they'll pop all over me if I cut them. Fourth, ew. Fifth, when did I ever tell him to just get over it and smash the damn spider? Sixth, scratch that last question; it might come back to haunt me.
Still, I might have been okay. Honestly, I went back after seeing the first worm. I thought maybe I could get most of the tomatoes and just leave a few until M gets home to help me. That was when I saw all the others. And I saw some of them eating (like these two).
Which is to say, I saw their heads moving as they sucked on green tomatoes. That was the worst. Ick. Ick, ick, ick.Okay, if you aren't already, you are more than welcome to laugh at me now. I just had to share, because I couldn't scream at the top of my lungs outside how disgusting that was.
* Stringham high: Yummy, gorgeous, red, ripe tomatoes.
* Stringham low: Hornworms
* Stringham super-high: Possible opportunity to work a contract job for a few months (meaning not losing 45% of my money off the top to taxes of one sort or another)...
Monday, August 23, 2010
The Beauty of a Country Morning
No complaining today, just the sharing of a beautiful morning. I looked outside to see fog hemming in our backyard. It's not a deep backyard, so those of you who've seen it can imagine how surprised I was to not be able to see past the edge of our yard.
Still, it's a lovely fog--light. One might almost want to use the term "fluffy." It was so pretty, I had to take a few pictures--very few, as it turns out, because my camera
battery died. When I stepped outside, however, the fog was even lovelier. (Yes, I keep using that term. There is nothing better for it.) The fog was more of a light mist, as it turns out. I could hear the slight drip of moisture collecting and running down our downspouts and feel the very gentle gathering of dampness on my skin. The air temperature was cool, but not cold, without even a hint of summertime heat or the chilliness that often accompanies heavy fog.The mist seemed almost magical, it was so light, so cool, so lovely. It dampened noise but didn't mute it. Everything simply seemed reverentially hushed, like worshippers entering a holy space. It was like Peace took a moment and descended on our little home. See for yourself:
Still, it's a lovely fog--light. One might almost want to use the term "fluffy." It was so pretty, I had to take a few pictures--very few, as it turns out, because my camera
battery died. When I stepped outside, however, the fog was even lovelier. (Yes, I keep using that term. There is nothing better for it.) The fog was more of a light mist, as it turns out. I could hear the slight drip of moisture collecting and running down our downspouts and feel the very gentle gathering of dampness on my skin. The air temperature was cool, but not cold, without even a hint of summertime heat or the chilliness that often accompanies heavy fog.The mist seemed almost magical, it was so light, so cool, so lovely. It dampened noise but didn't mute it. Everything simply seemed reverentially hushed, like worshippers entering a holy space. It was like Peace took a moment and descended on our little home. See for yourself:
Friday, August 20, 2010
Somewhere Beyond the Sea (to Somewhere over the Sun)
In the networking tradition of referring people you know or have met--but in my tradition of not referring someone unless I really think the person credible/worthwhile for the job or task at hand--I'm letting you all know about the author of the fantastic book I was mentioning on Facebook last week (yes, Adi, I was...) and that inspired my last blogspot. Here is the blog for Adi Alsaid, author of Somewhere Over the Sun. (For those of you who don't get the linky goodness when this blog posts on FB, down at the bottom of the post, click "Go to Original Post" or whatever it says, and visit my blog directly.)
Adi's blog mentions that he was filled with a little trepidation about seeing a review about his book out, even though it hasn't been published yet, and that's why I had not given away too much information about it before. Being professional, I try not to mention any book without author approval, but this manuscript just made me overflow with enthusiasm. And then Adi found me. (Isn't that a literary sentence?) He found me accidentally. Happy accidents are good, I think.
Go, read his blog. Support his book. Buy a copy when it's published. Buy three copies and give them to people you love. (No, I'm not getting paid to say this. If you were on FB, you've seen my rants about this book.)
It might sound fake if I keep at it, so I'm leaving it at that. I'm actually using my blog to "plug." Ordinarily, I might feel cheap, but I'm not getting paid in any way, shape, or form, so I feel good! Remember, it's Somewhere Over the Sun by Adi Alsaid and will be published by Dog Ear Publishing. If you're so inclined, you can read the full text of my review on Adi's blog or at LibraryThing.
* Stringham high: words, flowers, air-conditioning
* Stringham low: meh, just pesky annoyances
* Stringham super-high: great books
Adi's blog mentions that he was filled with a little trepidation about seeing a review about his book out, even though it hasn't been published yet, and that's why I had not given away too much information about it before. Being professional, I try not to mention any book without author approval, but this manuscript just made me overflow with enthusiasm. And then Adi found me. (Isn't that a literary sentence?) He found me accidentally. Happy accidents are good, I think.
Go, read his blog. Support his book. Buy a copy when it's published. Buy three copies and give them to people you love. (No, I'm not getting paid to say this. If you were on FB, you've seen my rants about this book.)
It might sound fake if I keep at it, so I'm leaving it at that. I'm actually using my blog to "plug." Ordinarily, I might feel cheap, but I'm not getting paid in any way, shape, or form, so I feel good! Remember, it's Somewhere Over the Sun by Adi Alsaid and will be published by Dog Ear Publishing. If you're so inclined, you can read the full text of my review on Adi's blog or at LibraryThing.
* Stringham high: words, flowers, air-conditioning
* Stringham low: meh, just pesky annoyances
* Stringham super-high: great books
Friday, August 13, 2010
What if this idea had never existed?
I'm editing a wonderful book** right now and came across a gem (or a pearl, if you like) of wisdom on why the main character "can't resist putting (his thoughts) down on paper": "The thing with thoughts is that they die, like everything else. But almost everything else leaves a trace behind, even if it's a tiny carcass, some proof that it existed."
It's so true. Each of us has his or her own reality (or 5 or 100 realities) in his/her head in addition to physical life. That's why I love reading, why I love conversation--because those ideas, thoughts, only propagate and live on by being shared with others. What if Shakespeare had never written his words? If all the songwriters in the world had not turned their thoughts into song lyrics? If the composers had never turned their thoughts into music, notes, symphonies, arias? If Georgia O'Keefe hadn't painted her thoughts? If the "giants" Newton referred to hadn't given more permanent evidence of their thoughts and Newton had thus never been able to build on their ideas, pull them into cohesive ideas that propelled our science, our physics forward so quickly these past few centuries? What if the people you love most in the world never gave voice (literal or figurative) to those thoughts of love? Or if this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JStOPpNI4Tk&NR=1) had never been written and performed?
I think everyone should provide proof each day of even just one thought--through drawing, conversation, writing, composing, creating.
Give tangible life to your thoughts.
**Working title: Somewhere over the Sun [working title may change, and I'm not sure what name the author is going to publish under]
It's so true. Each of us has his or her own reality (or 5 or 100 realities) in his/her head in addition to physical life. That's why I love reading, why I love conversation--because those ideas, thoughts, only propagate and live on by being shared with others. What if Shakespeare had never written his words? If all the songwriters in the world had not turned their thoughts into song lyrics? If the composers had never turned their thoughts into music, notes, symphonies, arias? If Georgia O'Keefe hadn't painted her thoughts? If the "giants" Newton referred to hadn't given more permanent evidence of their thoughts and Newton had thus never been able to build on their ideas, pull them into cohesive ideas that propelled our science, our physics forward so quickly these past few centuries? What if the people you love most in the world never gave voice (literal or figurative) to those thoughts of love? Or if this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JStOPpNI4Tk&NR=1) had never been written and performed?
I think everyone should provide proof each day of even just one thought--through drawing, conversation, writing, composing, creating.
Give tangible life to your thoughts.
**Working title: Somewhere over the Sun [working title may change, and I'm not sure what name the author is going to publish under]
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thank Goodness for Credit Monitoring
So amidst all the chaos of my computer drama this week, I got an email from my credit-monitoring service to alert me to a concern in one of my credit reports. So I checked it out this evening. It turns out that the collection agency we went around and around with back in the spring has reported that I have an unpaid balance of $8,666. Yeah, that's right, that eye surgery that I am not responsible for got reported as me not paying it. And even after one party apparently got their money for it.
IMC Credit Services now, apparently, has this account and has made it show on my credit report. I'm disputing the account, of course. I am STEAMED. Absolutely effing PISSED.
Mike and I bent over backwards not only to make sure that we really weren't responsible for the charges for this surgery but also that the hospital got PAID for this surgery. We did the due diligence that we should have done, plus all the work and diligence that the freaking hospital AND health management organization AND this collection agency should have done, and my credit is suffering from it. Those freaking bastards! I should have known things had been too quiet for too long after we thought they had been resolved...it's been about three months since I've heard anything about this, and then it just got reported on my credit.
* Stringham high: Starcraft II, World of Warcraft
* Stringham low: failing laptops, disabled desktop computers, and m-fing bills for money that I don't owe.
* Stringham super-high: fantastic, supportive and helpful friends and family
IMC Credit Services now, apparently, has this account and has made it show on my credit report. I'm disputing the account, of course. I am STEAMED. Absolutely effing PISSED.
Mike and I bent over backwards not only to make sure that we really weren't responsible for the charges for this surgery but also that the hospital got PAID for this surgery. We did the due diligence that we should have done, plus all the work and diligence that the freaking hospital AND health management organization AND this collection agency should have done, and my credit is suffering from it. Those freaking bastards! I should have known things had been too quiet for too long after we thought they had been resolved...it's been about three months since I've heard anything about this, and then it just got reported on my credit.
* Stringham high: Starcraft II, World of Warcraft
* Stringham low: failing laptops, disabled desktop computers, and m-fing bills for money that I don't owe.
* Stringham super-high: fantastic, supportive and helpful friends and family
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