Hello! It’s been a minute. I’ve been busy in that way that completes the things you need to get done, but not the things you want to get done. It’s all for the greater good, apparently.
Essentially time after work is spent corralling, feeding, herding, and cleaning up after the cats. We’re all on a pretty good schedule and things are finally settling down.
Last weekend I was rather domestic and built a succulent garden (and cleaned, and . I finally got everything properly potted, but here’s what I’ve got so far.
Before
I had to dig out a bunch of that dirt that neighborhood strays had crapped in, scour the bricks of the porch (causing hordes of ants to climb everywhere), and paint the bricks. Whomever ‘built’ the weird little planter area decided the best way to do it would be set concrete blocks in cement. I doubt there was any measuring or leveling. In theory it’s a nice idea, it reality it made things a hassle.
The next step was to measure the area, head to Home Depot, buy the wood, stain and paint it, then put it together to cover up everything while being strong enough to hold the brilliant plant idea I came up with. (“Brilliant” typically means “In Over Your Head” with my projects.) After we got everything situated, the only thing left to do was add plants.
After
This makes me much happier. It also rained all week, and two days ago one of the strays knocked over a rectangular planter, but it seems to be mostly okay. Jason straightened it up and I’ll deal with making sure all the plants are snug in their homes (they don’t look too bad).
Oh, I also re-did the container gardens on the porch. There are two small succulents at about 1100 and 1200 in the left arrangement, and those are from the wedding. THAT makes me happy. Now that they’ve been replanted in good soil and watered, they’ve come back from being dormant, and are blending right in with the rest of the crew.
Container gardens
Did you guys know that I have another blog? Yes. Domesticity (http://dmestic.wordpress.com/) except I haven’t updated since 2010. Everything seems to just fall into place in this blog, so this is where most of the updates happen. Also, as the kittens slowly settle down and stop requiring me to pay attention to them every single nanosecond (else they’ll destroy everything), I have a smidgen more time to do things not involving them. Things that are a touch more relaxing, like drinking tea, or writing an email, or looking at the internet. That latter part is tough because they tend to want to jump up and down on the laptop specifically when I’m using it, making updates rather difficult.
Bonus round: my home office finally has a desktop system, which is loaded up with Adobe’s CS6 Suite. It only took me five years to get back on track, but there was that whole search-and-buy a house thing, and that wedding thing, so life was a bit hectic.
See, there’s this thing floating around the Interwebs, one of those memes, and it says (essentially) that “When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to grow up. Uh, this sh/t is NOT what I expected.”
Here’s the part where (if I was a kid), I’d brag all about how I cleaned my room AND put away the laundry AND made my bed. Then I did the dishes! They’re put away!!
Anyway, since I’m an adult, you get to hear me being excited over my accomplishments of that single day last weekend, which include:
-going to the doctor
-going to Home Depot
-bought a ton of plants and supplies for the succulent gardens
-brought the plants and supplies home AND set them up (the painting/potting adventure (during which I spilled white latex paint all over the driveway had to wait until there was more daylight)
-made yet another homemade smoothie and dinner in efforts to get myself healthy and back in shape (now I’m drinking juice concoctions on a regular basis, mostly thanks to Casa De Juice)
-washed and put away the majority of the dishes (which is impressive because the majority of all dishes we owned were everywhere but in their proper place)
-cleaned out the spice drawer and made a spice area elsewhere (!!! there was stuff from 2004, you guys! it’s cleaned out! we now have a cat food drawer, oh man. OH MAN.)
-reorganized the kitchen and cleaned it
-SWIFFERED
-cleaned out the utility area and made room for the kittens’ litter to be moved over
-actually cleaned the litter (argh)
I know there was more, but that’s a metric ton of stuff for me to do on my day off, which is typically reserved for sitting on the couch With Snacks, reading and passing out when whatever’s on TV bores me to unconsciousness. I even broke a sweat.
That was two weekends ago (oh, I had a birthday on Jan 10th, so last weekend was all about partying it up). This weekend was reserved for more standard cleaning involving laundry and vacuuming; psuedo-spring cleaning. My next domestic project for today/tomorrow is to reorganize my linen storage area and office, then tackle the huge pile of freshly cleaned laundry. I need to reorganize the office to make it more conducive to art stuff and also kitty-proof it. The sun is out but not strong and there’s a nice breeze, so I’ve got the house brightened up and am hoping my allergies stop sucking my life away. I’ve sneezed more in the past two months than I have in my life; seriously. Sneezing fits are not something that happen to me, nor are constantly itchy eyes and throat. People that suffer from this constantly have my sympathies.
The juicing thing has been good. I’ve been making daquiri-looking concoctions at home, and drinking juice blends as meal replacement every couple days. It’s helping a lot, because my weight and skin were making me very unhappy. Now that the house is much more organized, the space is here to do that stuff at home.
Anyway, it’s been a long strange trip, but for the most part, 2013 is off to a great start. I’m even doing yoga a bit more frequently. Now to remember this feeling when it gets crazy…
Retention 