Without internet

Sean and I have been without internet at home now for about 2 weeks. Stupid Time Warner. We are in the process of switching to AT&T. Apparently you don't have to paid for a phone line to have DSL anymore. It is amazing how much you don't realize you depend on the internet until you don't have it anymore. Granted we haven't been completely without since I have internet at work all day and Sean has internet at school.

However there have been times I wanted to write an e-mail or pay a bill or write a blog post and I can't. Then I have to take time at work to do the above thus staying later. I will be super exicited when we have the internet back.

On a side note if you are wondering why I haven't complained about my cable being out as well it is because we now have an antenna only. We have a HD antenna and I are able to get abc, nbc, cbs, fox, cw, and 5 pbs stations. I had no idea that we had so many PBS stations and that they provided such good programming. I watched an awesome program on Gaint Pandas the other day. They are so cute!!!

The daily WTF

I'm starting a new series on the blog called the daily WTF. It is a place for me to post crazy things that either happen to me or that I witness. Today I have a couple so far:

1. I saw a women today wearing stiletto heels and an ankle brace! For those of you reader who are not female it takes a lot of ankle power to walk in stiletto heels. Basically you put all of your weight on the ball of your foot because that tiny weeny pencil thin heel is very hard to balance on. Perhaps there is another method I'm unaware of but still ankle brace and pencil thin heels are a bad combination!

2. Re-reviewing a document only to find correction made in the first review not implemented. I'm not talking about controversial grammar or sentence changes I'm referring to incorrect content. So I had to correct the content a second time which didn't make me very happy. On the plus side using a pomegranate to calm down works quite well. It take quite a bit of concentration to get those darn little seeds out!

Feel free to throw out your daily WTFs!

Days until Thesis is complete

So according to my rough estimate there are 112 days left until the thesis is complete. Sean told me that he would be defending mid Feb so I did my calculation based on Feb 18th. We'll keep this little calculation between me and my readers, since I know Sean doesn't read my blog.

So I suppose 112 more days of doom. I say doom because this is the most stressed I have ever seen him. He isn't sleeping well and can't stop thinking about his thesis. Watching him go through this just reaffirms my plan to not ever do a thesis. I occasionaly bring work home or think about work from home, but rarily do I lose sleep over work. I hope to keep it this way!

So keep your fingers crossed that Sean can get his rough draft done before New years and defend on time!

left ya hanging

No I'm no on day 57 of no power... I got busy again and never got back to the blog. Although apparently one of my very dedicated readers continued to check it and post me comments on my last post.... I won't mention any names.....

We did end up being 4 days without power. The power went off Sunday 12ish and didn't come back on until 9pm Wednesday. Flushing toilets with buckets of water and boiling water on the grill to do dishes in the dark was getting mighty old. We lost tons of food from our refrig and freezer. The only saving grace was that our USAA home owners insurance ended up giving us 250 dollars to replace our food. We didn't have to meet our deductible or file a claim or anything. I love USAA!

Things are back to normal. Sean is a crazy busy mess with his thesis and I'm still being super house wife. I'm just counting the days until he is finished! Actually perhaps I should start a real count and just not telling him so it doesn't stress him out.....

Hurricane Ike in Dayton:Day 3

Sean and I have been taken back in time to when people didn't have electricity or running water. Our power has been out since Sunday at 2pm due to the hurricane category 1 winds that hit our area for about 4 hours on Sunday. We were quite lucky that the house and our trees survived which was not the case for a lot of people. Our neighborhood looked like a war zone. Tree and limbs down all over the place. A few blocks away a tree hit a house and damaged the roof. Another tree crushed a shed. I'm going to try and take some pictures this evening of the damage.

Gas stations are running out of gas and raising the price to 4.30 a gal. Luckily I have 1/4 of a tank which should last me until early next week. Tonight I need to clean out our frig and freezer. Some of the stuff we saved by taking to a friend's that has power and an extra frig. We also filled up quite a few bottles and some pitchers of water so we have fresh water to drink. If this lasts much longer I may be walking down to the creek to get buckets of water to flush the toilets.

Last night the Brinks security system, that was installed in the house by a previous owner, but we don't use, started going off at 5:00 am this morning. My guess is the battery was running out of power. We couldn't figure out how to get the cover off to begin with. It takes a square something. Luckily when I went to the garage to the socket set, I saw the control box in the laundry room. When I got the cover off I couldn't figure out how to disconnect the battery. However thanks to my Dad I knew to unscrew and pull out the wires to disconnect them from the circuit board. Now at this point you may be asking yourself why I was doing this and not Sean.....well funny story the cat knocked Sean glasses off the night stand while I was gone (in Colorado) and the dogs chewed them up. So Sean was basically blind. Anyways I'm frantically unscrewing and disconnecting wires and of course it is the last one that turns the damn alarm off! I'm of right mind to write Brinks an e-mail and state that as part of their disconnection they disconnect everything!!!! Bastards!!!

However I'm not really complaining or mad because we were very fortunate and I know the power company is doing everything they can to restore power as fast as they can. Apparently they had sent crews down to Texas to help those people who are probably worse off then we are. On the plus side this will be a story to tell for years, I'm saving money on electricity, and bonding with neighbors. On the downside work has power! oh well.

We are surviving with the grill, flash lights, and pb&j!!!

Latest garden scoop

I've harvested and eaten and given away a whole bunch of tomatoes. I won't be getting as many as I had originally thought because the mites really got my plants. A couple of plants just died but the rest are hanging in there and I seem to have gotten the mites sort of under control. The cucumber plants only ended up producing a few. I think it got to hot for them. They keep wilting.

The melons (cantelope and watermelon) aren't going to produce anything edible. The cantelope kept getting eaten by the cucumber beetles and I think got a fungus as well as being crowded out by a zucchini plant. The watermelon's leaves suddenly started curling up and turning yellow and looking wilty. I think it might be bacterial wilt or something else. Either way it is quite sad since I did have a few baby watermelons. One of they appears like it might be getting bigger but it could all be in my head. The plants aren't dead yet but struggling for sure.

The green beans were and are delicious. They appear to be flowering again so I might get some more before it freezes!!! Oh and most exiciting I have corn. I unfortunately picked two of them too early, but there are still 6 or so still out there. I'll let you know how it tastes. Second most exiciting thing is my green peppers appear to be starting to turn!!! My thai hots have been turning for a little while now. In fact I need to go out there and harvest some of them. I wonder how spicy they will be.

I made salsa tonight from all my different types of tomatoes. I got a hot pepper from my CSA and decided to add some of it because Sean thought it was a little bland. It is good thing that I only chopped up half of the pepper (serrano I think) and then only put half of the chopped up portion into the salsa. Now it has a bit of a kick. I think I got a seed during one of my tasting because it burned the back of my throat. It is melding in the refridgerator until tomorrow. Hopefully it won't get too much spicier or I will have to add more tomatoes or something.

I'm going to try and make pasta sauce later in the week and maybe can some chopped tomatoes. I got quart sized canning jars from my next door neighbor. Tomorrow I'm going to look at good will for some pint sized ones. I want the smaller ones for canning jam. I've got a whole bunch of blackberries that I want to turning into jam. Apparently you can make small batches of jam in your bread machine (if it has a jam setting). We'll see how it goes!

Garden: Update

So far I have harvested:
Tomatoes: 7 pear, 4 zebra
Zucchini: 1 huge one (I have no idea how that happened)

Unripe but coming:
tomatoes: a billion (way too many to count)
Zucchini: a few (however they are sneaky, so it could be more)
Cucumber: 3-4 (although I'm still trying to figure out when you harvest them)
Bell Pepper: 10-12 green ones (I'm debating whether to pick some of the green ones. Supposedly if you pick you first batch of peppers green it will cause the plant to produce more pepper overall. The problem is that Sean and I don't like them green!)
Beans: A whole bunch (It would be way to hard to count. I've got to go out and check them today to see if any are ready to harvest cause they are certainly getting bigger)

Flowering or still growing:
Corn: getting bigger but no silk yet
Watermelon: tons of flowers
Cantaloupe: tons of flowers (the cucumber beetles have been really attacking these, so we'll see what we get)

The dogs first home hair cut

Sean and I decide to save money we would start grooming the boys at home. It costs around 120 each time they are both groomed and for that we could buy a nice pair of clippers. So that sealed the deal. So this past Saturday we gave it a go and let me tell you it is a whole lot harder than it looks. As my Mom put it "They look like they were attacked by the mad clippers!" I thought everyone would enjoy some pictures!

Before


"Stop the torture!"


"What are you doing to me?"


"Oh dear, some one help me!"


After


After

None of the after picture do their "Great" haircuts justice. I'll try to take some better ones.

Dayton air show

This past weekend Sean and I took my parents to the air show. It was an awesome air show. By far the best I've ever seen! There were at least 5 aerobatic acts. Also we got to see the f-22 which is asolutely amazing. It really puts the f-16 and f-18 to shame.

In addition to really neat performances we were in a special section with free food and drinks as well as practically front row seating. Raytheon donates money to the Air Force Association so they give us a certain number of tickets for our people to attend the air show in style. The food was just your standard BBQ food however having access to cold bottled water the entire show was by far the best advantage. We must have gone through at least 8 bottles! It was quite hot and sunny.

Here are some photos of the event! Enjoy!!

Misty Blues all women skydiving team


C17 - flys like a jet but is huge


F22 - awesome after burners


more F22 coolness


Legacy flight


us


F104 - they look like the fighter jets from star wars


more F104


Sean D Tucker - areobatics

Up close to it

Patio Updates

Hey everyone, I know I'm averaging like once a month right now but I at least have some pictures to share. Here are some pictures of our completed patio.


Almost done


Grass growing


Other angle

picture of completed bed

Here are some pics of the finished bed. It has tomatoes and beet and carrot seed in it already so more pictures to follow.

raised bed progress

Well I still don't have my raised bed in the ground the 4x4 didn't come in time for the weekend before this last one and this one was mostly a rainy mess. However Saturday I was able to level out the ground for where the box is going to go. Tomorrow is suppose to be the day for installation so keep your fingers crossed. The weather is suppose to be nice. I've got to pick up wire mesh and landscaping fabric for the bottom. You may be thinking why mesh? Well moles are why! I don't want them tunneling up into my bed. I'm going to take some before and after pictures so be on the look out.

Oh and my tomatoes are huge (6+ ") so as soon as the bed is ready some will go in there and the rest will go in the unraised section. I have somewhere around 20+ plants all going strong so I think I will probably give a few away. Now the only problem with that scheme is I have no idea which plants are which at this point. My bad for not being more careful with the label when I transplanted them to bigger pots. So it could be a bit interesting. I started three varieties (red zebra, moonglow, and yellow pear) oh and some hybrid brush like ones that I got seed from my co-worker.

Last bit of garden news: I had 2 whiskey barrel planter out front that weren't being used. I kept thinking I would get flowers to put in there but I didn't want to spend the money on actual plants. So one has leaf lettuce and one has peas. I started the peas a little late so we'll see how they go. Oh and I had another ugly pot I inherited that I put more leaf lettuce in. It was quite a bit of work taking out most of the old soil and mixing in new top soil and compost so keep your fingers crossed.

Actually I lied.... even after I get the raised bed in I'm putting paver stones back by the fence to make a walkway. I started the trench but then filled partially back in while leveling the space for my raised bed. And I've got to get rest of the patch in shape for the rest of my veggies. I want to raise it up party as well but I'm not sure I will have time. I managed to acquired 37 8" paver stones like you would use for a tree ring (the smaller ones) from craig's list for 25$!!! Quite the steal however I'm not sure if that will be enough or I will have enough time to get them put in before I really need plant the rest of my seeds. I'll keep you guys posted. Pictures I swear will follow.

Garden progress

I started my tomato and pepper plants about a month ago. They are growing like crazy. The tomatoes are at least 6 inches. The pepper are progressing a little slower but they are still doing well. It has been so fun to see how much they grow from day to day. It was a stressful when I was waiting for them to sprout. I kept checking and checking to see if anything was coming up. Finally the tomatoes sprouted and then about 4 days later peppers started coming up. I can't wait until it gets a little warmer during the day so I can start putting them outside for part of the day.

I'm about half way done with my 1st raised bed frame. My co-worker has been instrumental in this effort. Basically, I bank rolled the project and I help when I can with the construction. I "supervise" so to speak. I am however working hard to cleanup and prepare the space it is going to go. The plan is to finish assembly and put it in the ground this weekend if we get the 4X4. I had to special order untreated cedar 4x4's because they generally only carry treated ones. However treated wood can leach harmful chemical like arsenic into your soil so I steered clear of that. I can't wait to see it completed. It is going to look super fancy and nice. And hopefully grow awesome veggies!

A day in the life of Me

I thought I should probably provide some insight as to why I haven't been posting lately so here is an accounting of an average day in my life.

6:30-7am - wakeup
7-8am - get tea, pickup kitchen (if still some dishes from the night before), exercise
8-9:15 - shower, get dressed, dry hair, let dog in and out and in and out, get lunch, make oatmeal, pickup house, etc.
9am-6:30pm - drive to work, work and drive home
6:30 - 8pm - change, make dinner, cleanup from dinner
8-9pm - do some housework, lately working outside (mowing lawn, cleaning up my garden, etc.)
9-10pm - start getting ready for bed and spend a little time doing whatever else I need to do (looking stuff up, checking e-mail, cat boxes)
10-10:30 - finish getting ready for bed and maybe read if I'm not to exhausted.
10:30 - 11pm - go to sleep.

So as I can see above I don't have a ton of free time right now. By the time I get to 9pm I'm usually exhausted and just want to go to bed. Unfortunately I'm one of those people who can't just go to bed. I have a routine of stuff I do before getting into bed and it generally takes at least an hour. I'm a very routine person. If I don't set my clothes out for work the next day it can take me twice as long to get ready.

Anyways there you have it a typical day in the life of me.

Today's Smile: Spoiled Puppy

Oh and in case you are wondering, I didn't sleep on couch, I kicked him out of my spot a few minutes later. Little spot stealer!!!

Turkey Vulture infestion

A couple of weeks ago Sean called me on my way home from work to say I should hurry because there was a hawk in the evergreen behind our house. Well by the time I got home there were more and more and more...... I think there were in approximately 60 plus birds when they stopped appearing. Don't believe me! Here are some photos to prove it.

One tree

The other tree

Oh and there were some more in a tree farther down. Crazy huh? Oh and they weren't flying down to the ground so there wasn't something dead. So I'm not sure what they were doing. Luckily most of them were gone by the next night.

Blizzard March 08

Well we experienced our first big snow storm here in ohio today and yesterday. Now I will preference this with we had several storms of similar magnitude in Boston. However people in Ohio are not prepared to deal with storms of this size. We have about 12-15 inches of snow. Esimation is difficult due to the blowing snow which caused drifting. The conditions were pretty nasty this morning and most of the day. The only ones at our house enjoying the snow are the dogs. I thought I would post a few pictures. Oh and I want to give a shout out to Amy and Jessie who made it to Columbus during a lull in the storm on Saturday early morning (2am) but have been stuck there because the roads are too bad for us to drive the 80 or so miles to pick them up. Luckily they were able to find a hotel! I really hope I can see you ladies tomorrow!!!

Nightmares about work

You know that you've been working too much when you have nightmares about work. I had a demo today for work and last night I had nightmares about coding and the demo. It was down right creepy!!! One should never dream about java code...it is just wrong!

However my demo went pretty well. I get to do it again next wednesday with hopefully some additional functionality. In the mean time I need to learn about SQL and oracle. Fun stuff, let me tell you. Oh and Sean said today that I may have to help him with the coding of his thesis. When I asked him jokingly if he would pay me, he actually said yes. Then I said "and hire a maid" and he said "perhaps that could be my payment!"

So it looks like I may be interviewing for the position of maid/housekeeper. Any takers?

Single mom with a kid in college....

That is how I'm feeling lately. Sean is super busy with school and I'm super busy with work. Yet I still have to cook dinner and clean the house and all the other things that keep this house running. And of course on top of that take care of Sean. Read doing his laundry, making him coffee, poking him when he falls asleep doing homework. This whole Sean being in school thing and me working full time thing is more taxing and time consuming than I thought it would be.

What little time I have gotten to myself lately has consisted of reading work books and attempting to get my craft room cleaned up. I can't wait until our trip to las vegas in a couple of weeks. I plan on relaxing and taking in the sights. More on that later.

I'm excited for Amy and Jessie's visit this weekend. I still have somethings to do before they get here but I'm getting there.

Oh and I have 3 animals that I'm considering giving away due to waking us up multiple time during the night! Any takers??? They're cute just a bit boogery.........

Seeing the lama speak

This weekend I attended a talk by Garchen Rinpoche, a Dirkung Kagyu lama (aka buddhist lama). I have been interested in buddhism for sometime and last week I decided to attend a intro to buddhism and mediation class at Gar Drolma, which is a buddhist center in dayton. The lama founded this center and has a buddhist institute in arizona. He only come about once every year or year and half.

I really didn't know what to except but what happened definately wasn't quite what I had visioned. First off he didn't speak any english so he had a translator. Second off he was funny. He was joking around with some of the people and in his teachings he had some jokes. He was also an extremeley animated speaker. Eventhough I had no idea what he was saying it was fascinating to watch him and try to infer some of the meaning. He would speak for a while and the translator would take notes and then translate that chunk into english. He is definately one of the most joyous people I have ever witnessed.

All in all while I'm not sold on this buddhism thing, I'm glad that took this oppertunity to see a genuine lama speak.

Self checkout at the supermarket

I love the self checkout at the super market. I can be in and out very quickly if I only have a few items at least usually....... Self checkout is not a new thing. It has been around for quite sometime. I would have thought that everyone that wanted to try it would have by now. Apparently this is not the case. Today I'm at the Krogers (Kings sooper for all you Colorado folk) and I get stuck behind the slowest people. At station 1 we have a women with produce who thinks she can scan her box of clemtines and think it does scan, so the machine is yelling "Unexpected item in the bagging area, please remove". On machine 2 we have a women who doesn't realize that the machine works off of weight so she is too quick and gets the unexpected item so she takes it out and puts it back and the cycle continues for almost every item. Station 3 we have a women with quite a few items and too small children but mobile children. Not a good combination for self checkout! And finally on Station 4 we have an elderly gentlemen who is frankly baffled by the whole process. He slowly makes it through the instructions and scans each item. He doesn't put them in the bags he just lays them on the shelf. So when he is finally finished he is trying to put the items in the bags but things are falling out and then the lady monitoring the stations notices that he has missed an item. So he starts the whole process over again. Meanwhile there are still items on the shelf. Seriously people where have you been! And for the record and not to be mean but what possessed the old man to do the self checkout anyway! Not very many people of our grandparents generation are good with new technology! I told me neighbor Herb the other day to google something and he didn't even know what google was!

Almost back to his normal self

Charlie is feeling much better and is almost back to his normal self. The antibotics are doing the trick. Although he is getting feistier and fiestier about taking them. He hasn't spit one out yet so I suppose that is good. Friday morning I had to give it too him all by myself because I forgot to have Sean help me before he went to school. Let me tell you that was an entertaining ordeal. I had to go into the bathroom and shut the dogs out. I penned him between the counter and the wall and manager to pry his mouth open and shove the pill in! I'm sure it would have made and enteraining youtube video. Quincy's ears are almost all better and Toby is still healthy so will call it a good end to a stressful week.

Sick kitty

Charlie was acting funny when we got home from work last night. He didn't meet me at the door and wasn't begging for his dinner. He was just laying on the guest bed sleeping. At the time I thought perhaps he was just extra tired. Well by the time bed time rolled around he still hadn't moved so I picked him up and put him in front of his food dish. Still didn't want to eat. He seem kind of out of it as well. He didn't sleep with us last night and this morning I found him curled up in our closet. He wouldn't come out for breakfast and hadn't eaten all night. This is when I became very concerned. I call the vet as soon as they were open and was able to get him and appointment for 9:15am.

At 9am I got his carrier and loaded him in the car. He peed in his carrier while we were in the car. I didn't notice this until we got to the vet. His whole back end was wet! The vet saved some the urine for a sample and clean out my kennel. He was running a fever and had blood in his urine. Oh and he had some feas again. Sean and I had forgotten to give him his frontline and gave it too him last night. The vet thinks it is probably just a parasite from the feas or possibly a kidney infection. So hopefully it is one of those and not something worse. They took some blood and gave me antibotics.

When I got home from work he seemed about the same. However he seems to have perked up a little since then. I don't think he has eaten anything yet, but hopefully he will over night. He just seems a little more comfrontable then earlier. He is sleeping under my papason chair right now. He even purred for me a little.

I was really worried about him all day and when I got home from work. I hope that the worst is behind us now! All keep you all posted.

Toby is the only healthy animal in the house right now. Quincy had/has an ear infection. He gets to go to the vet tomorrow to have it rechecked. So keep your fingers crossed that Toby is not next!

Best superbowl ever!!!!

I have watched a number of super bowls over the years but almost always for the commercials. How ever this year's game was actually pretty intense and exciting. I was of course pulling for the Giant's given our family hatred of the Patriots. I also wanted to see Eli have a good game since he is always in the shadow of his brother. Also who else was highly amusing by the clips they keep showing of Peyton. It was just entertaining to watch his reactions. Plus seriously does the man have any friends! Oh and way to leave that women hanging at the end when they won. She was totally looking for a victory hug!

Oh and what was with the announcer's hair. Serious colic going on in the back the every time they showed him on TV. Honestly you think someone would have motioned to let him know. It was distracting!

Oh what was everyone's favorite ad? I personally liked the e-trader baby with the clown, the hank Budweiser, and planters uni-brow. There were quite a few good ones. You can watch them all here. Oh and who wants to see the new pixier Disney Wall-E movie!!!! See a trailer here.

The answers...Finally

I know you, my loyal reader were waiting in rapture for the answers to the "name the vegetable" quiz. Well the wait is finally over. Drum roll please.....

1. Arkansas traveler - Tomato
2. Small shining light - Watermelon
3. Ram's Horn- String Bean
4. Cosmic Purple - Carrot

Oh and the winner is Jenn, with the highest score of 1!!!! Your prize will arrive in 6-8 weeks..........perhaps longer.....knowing how mailing goes in our family!

The joys of home ownership....

Last night our furnance stopped working. It simply wouldn't come on. Of course we had to realize this at 9pm. It ws 65 in the house and the thermostat was set to 70. We tried turning it up, nothing happened. We tried turning it to EM Heat nothing happened. We check the circuit breaker in the garage. Nothing was tripped. So we put an extra blanket on the bed and went to sleep. We woke up at 6am and still no heat. The house was down to 57 degrees. Sean went to PT and I called the company that installed and maintained the system for the owner before the last one. I was surprised to actually get someone but since it wasn't an emergency and I didn't want to pay the extra for them to come during off hours I agreed that they could call after 8am. Now of course I had to be at the Vet at 8am so I gave them my cell phone number too. Quincy has an ear infection and the vet was sympathetic when I explained that my heat wasn't working and they might call while I was in with him. Of course they did call in the middle of the appointment. How embrassing but everyone was understanding. So after I returned home the house was at 55 degrees. Darn cold!!! My coworker suggested that I reset all the breakers associated with the heat. I went out to garage and did all the ones marked furnance, heat pump, and heater. Nothing happend. I then went back in the house and open up the closet with the furnance. I noticed that there were two breakers on the bottom. I reset the first one nothing, however when I reset the second one the air magically came back on!!! Yah!!!! However Sean and I decided to keep our appointment to have everything checked out anyways since we don't know why the breaker got tripped in the first place. The heat went on back on at 9:30 when it was 55 degrees. It is now 11:30am and it is only up to 59! I'm hoping that the last 10 degrees back up to 70 will go quickier since it is warming up outside. It was around 16 degrees this morning. The sun has come out and it is suppose to get into the 30s today. We have a heat pump and they don't work very well in super cold weather. We have a auxillary heater to supplement when it is very cold.

Well hopefully the repair person will come soon and nothing major will be wrong. Sean is coming home soon to relieve me so I can go into work. At least it is finally starting to feel a little less frigid in the house!!! I wish that I had fur like the animals. They didn't seem to be in the least bit bothered by the cold.

finally they started coming....

What am I talking about? My seed catalogs!!! I requested at least 5 or 6 and had until this week only received 2. First I got the Burpee catalog. Plenty of pretty picture but they mainly carry hybrid and non open pollinated varieties. While I haven't completely made up my mind about hybrids I'm not sure I like the idea of messing with plant genetics. I sort of feel like we should let evolution run it course to make heartier, healthier, and better varieties.

Second catalog I received was seed savers. Seriously an awesome catalog with tons of information and pictures. Each variety has a short informative description about origin and characteristics. Never I have a seen some many types of tomatoes or melon or other veggies. So cool. I highly recommend requesting this one or at least browsing it online.

This week I have gotten 3 more catalogs. First Totally tomatoes, second seymour's selected seeds, and last baker creek heirloom seeds. Totally Tomatoes is basically all tomatoes and pepper. So awesome for a tomato lover like me....except eventually I will have to chose a few varieties. Seymour's is a flower seed catalog with beautiful flowers. Baker Creek is a smaller seed company out of Missouri that is family owned. They have an extremely thick catalog with tons of different types of heirloom plants.

Also I should note that seed catalogs can be quite amusing. The types often have crazy names like: mammoth melting sugar (sweet pea), sweet chocolate (brown sweet pepper), green zebra (tomato), mortgage lifter (tomato), and many many more.

For fun here are a few guess what type of veggie they are:

1. Arkansas traveler
2. Small shining light
3. Ram's Horn (Just for you Chris!)
4. Cosmic Purple

No cheating by looking them up on the internet. Oh and a hint is they are all common summer produce. Nothing weird like parsnips or rutabaga. Have fun!

Garden: Initial thoughts and rambling

I'm determined to have a vegetable garden this year. Last year started out with herbs and tomatoes in pots. They did pretty well while in my care. I gave them to Shari and a neighbor when we moved. I inherited a wild mess of tomatoes once we arrived. I can't remember if I posted on them before but it was a vining crazy super producing mess. Needless to say I really didn't do anything to keep them alive they just grew.

So with both of those facts combined I think there is hope that I might be somewhat successful. Also I think some of Sean's research maddess has rubbed off. I have requested at least 5 different seed catalogs from various source, bought one book, and checked out two from the library. I would have checkout more but there is a 2 book limit when you get your card and then they mail it too you. (side note: I think that is the strangest library policy I have come across yet. The only thing I can figure is that they had trouble with people putting down wrong addresses and loosing books.) I plan on checking out more book once I received my card in the mail. (hopefully it will come tomorrow)

I have received two seed catalogs so far. One from Burpee and one from Seed Savers. The Burpee one had plenty of pretty pictures but not as much information as I was looking for and also I'm not sure I want to grow any hybrid plants and non open pollinated plants. The Seed savers catalog is awesome. Tons of helpful information about favor and quality, plus all of their seeds are heirloom varieties. I also like the idea of supporting their cause of saving seeds to make sure certain varieties don't die out.

Anyways I think I have rambled enough for today! Any one else have any garden plans or resources they want to share?

Sunrise alarm clock: take 3

I didn't use my alarm clock over the weekend so I could sleep in and wake up naturally. Luckily we had sun shine over the weekend even though it was freezing outside (12 was the high on sunday.) So last night I switch it to do the sunrise over 15 minutes instead of 30. Well the puppies didn't wake me up and I made it until the soft beeping but I felt groggier than I did on the 30 minutes. In fact I ended up staying in bed an extra 5 minutes with the light on until Quincy and Toby got persistent. So I wish there was a setting between 15 and 30 minutes. I'm going to give 15 minutes another try tomorrow. I will still say that even with being less awake on the 15 cycle it was still a more pleasant way to wake up than loud beeping.

The alarm clock also has another nice feature which I have been experimenting with, it is sunset. The idea is the same only the light gets dimmer instead of brighter. The time can be set to either 15,30,45, or 60 minutes depending on what you want. I haven't sat and read as it gets darker which I'm going to try tonight. I have just been turning it to sunset as I'm getting ready for bed...and I haven't really gotten the full effect since other lights have been on.

Overall I'm still happy with the clock. I'll keep you posted on next couple of days.

Today's Smile: Comedian lives in IKEA store

I know we all love IKEA but do any of us love it enough to live there for an entire week? Well apparently comedian Mark Malkoff does! His New York city apartment is being fumigated so he decide to move into IKEA and film it for the week. He of course has a blog all about it with video clips. Enjoy!

Operation organize craft room

In our new house I have my own room just for me. I painted it a serene blue and put all of my Degas dancers on the walls. I have my papazon chair for curling up and reading as well as my own book case for all of my books. Sean banished my books for sharing any shelf with mine. Apparently his was embarrassed by the trashy romances and other girly books. In addition I have two desks. One is at the regular level and has a pull out drawer that folds down to form a keyboard tray for my ergonomic keyboard and track ball mouse (which doesn't roll as well as it use to thanks to puppy teeth marks.) The other is at counter height so I can stand and cut paper or do other crafts while standing. I also have bar height stool so I can sit at it as well. All of this is fabulous and should be very functional but it is generally a disaster. I need more storage space for all of my craft supplies as well as some other organization for all of my ongoing projects.

To get the ball rolling and add some more storage space, I had Sean take the doors off the closet. I don't use the closet for clothes and decided it would be a lot more function for storage if it was open. It looks good without the doors, minus the ugly beige which still needs to be painted. So this weekend I'm going to scout out a shelf of some kind to put in there. I'm also going to start watching target ads to get some more clear plastic bins with lids. I need more file folders to hold my paper and scraps. I discovered that one of my plastic drawer things has a big drawer that will hold vertical files so I doubled my storage. Hopefully all of that and more will help the space become more productive and less messy.

I have so many craft projects that I want to complete or start or try that I must get this problem under control!!!

Sunrise alarm clock: take 1

I received my new sunrise alarm clock yesterday! I read through all the instructions (5 pages) and set it up last night. I tossed and turned and woke up several times during the night. Charlie woke me up at 5am because he wanted me to put him in front of his food bowl and rub his belly (this is a nightly occurence so not out the ordinary) I woke up again a little while later thinking it isn't time to get up yet but I didn't really go back to sleep. I rolled over and there was light in my face. Once Quincy heard me moving around he came and put his paws on the bed and his wet nose in my face. I tried to tell him it wasn't time yet but his was very insistent. I then looked at the clock and it was 5 minutes before when I set the alarm. So I'm not certain if it was light that woke me or something else. I think the light woke Quincy. I could probably shut off the backup beep since it would appear that I have a backup puppy instead!!!

I will say that even after not the best night of sleep I didn't feel to groggy. Stay tuned for trial 2 tomorrow morning.....

A new year a new resolution

Last year my New Year's resolution was to watch less TV. Thanks to my DVR and cutting many worthless shows (Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, One Tree Hill, and a few more) I was able to do a pretty good job accomplishing this goal. This year my resolution is to tone up and be more fit. In order to accomplish this goal I decided the most important thing was to develop a routine. In the past I have tried to exercise after work or in the evening. I would always come up with excuses or need to get home to make dinner. I also don't really like to shower more than once a day because I have dry skin. So I decided that I should start exercising in the morning before work. Of course this means getting up a little earlier and being more consistent about my wake up time. However I find that I do better when I have a routine so this hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. It also helps that most people I work with don't get to work until 9am or a little later.

So far so good. I get up at 7am, exercising by 7:15am, and in the shower by 8am. It is still a little dark in the morning to go walking or running so I've mostly been following workouts on the TV. Our cable has Exercise on Demand. They have a variety of classes at different exercise levels. I'll keep you all posted as to how it is going!

Anyone else want to share their resolutions?

Needed to vent

Tonight I was at book club enjoying the discussion of the book which lead to talk of other books and then movies made from books. One of the women brought up the Golden Compass. She was talking about some of the books her son was reading or was going to read the Golden Compass being one of them. As soon as she mentioned the book one the other women immediately said "You know the author is an atheist right?" She said it such condescending tone. The other women simply said that she was aware and the topic was dropped after a slightly uncomfortable pause. I was completely flabbergasted. It is one thing to object to the content of the book but totally different to object or discriminate against the author. If the woman had said "You know the author is catholic right" Everyone would have been shocked and appalled. That simply would not be an appropriate thing to say. Even worse if she had said "You know the author is black or Hispanic or Asian or the list goes on and on. However no one challenged her and in her mind what she said was completely reasonable and fine.

Now to make matters worse in my mind this women not five minutes earlier was talking about how appalled she was about the stereo types her kids (she is a counselor) believed in. In my mind discriminating against someone because they don't believe the same way you do is just as bad as her kids buying to stereo types. Both are forms are discrimination, why is intolerance of non-religion or religion more accepted?

What do you think about the issue?

A random book review

I have never done this before and may never do it again but I'm going to review a book. I just finished "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" today for my book club. It is the story of two girls who are best friends during their lives. It takes place in ancient China during the time of foot binding and arranged marriages. The book follows Lily and Snow Flower as their lives unfold. One girl has great success and happiness while the other has poverty and sadness. It is beautiful book and one that will have special meaning to anyone who has had or has a very close friend. I highly recommend the book even though I balled my eyes out at the end. Toby even came and sat on my lap to comfort me because I making such horrible noises. It is amazing to me that they have that much perception.

Anyways the book moved me and I will probably read it again someday. So pickup it up if you haven't already read it!

your demands answered!

At least the two of you who apparently still check my blog! Guys I seriously just read your 23 comments today at 9:09 pm. I felt so love and needed, oh and laughed my butt off....I mean who knew I had such dedicated reader that they would post me a comment everyday.

Now on to a more serious topic. Part of the reason I have not been posting is that I have SAD (seasonal affective disorder) Some days it was hard to motivate myself to do much of anything besides go to work. However the good news is that I'm getting help and treatment. I can't wait for my new sunrise alarm clock to come and I'm in the process of ordering a light visor.

To fill those of you in that aren't familar with SAD, it is a sub category of depression. Doctors believe that is has to do with not getting enough sunshine because is usually affects people in the winter. Although apparently there are some cases of people having depression in the summer. For the past three winters I've been down in the dumps. Last winter I went on a low dose of anti-depressants. At the time I didn't realize it was SAD. I just thought it had to with the prospect of moving again. However this winter when I was still on the anti-depressants and feeling crappy still I began to wonder. I was so happy all spring, summer, and fall and there is nothing wrong in my life. My job is good and furry babies are good, sean and I are good, so seriously what gives!

I blame it on all the Colorado sunshine. I mean its cold and it snows but it hardly ever stays gray for more than a day or two. This is definately not the case in Dayton and wasn't the case in Boston either.

So for now I will continue the meds, light therapy, and exercise. I'm also starting to plan my garden for the summer. Stay posted for reviews on the new alarm clock and garden plans.