One Year

I meant to write this out last week, since that's the anniversary date...

One year ago, I quit a job that made me miserable.  I had chronic headaches, gained weight (a lot), went on anti-depressants, and felt generally broken-spirited.  Pity party aside, I was in a very bad place.
So I left that behind.  In the year since, I've learned more about myself, my relationships with those closest to me, and I've managed to accept things and move on more easily.

I've also realized that staying home all day sucks sometimes and is the best.thing.EVER on other days.
Some other things I've noticed:

• Baseboards suck.  Seriously.  All they do is sit there and collect dust and hair, then shout at me about it every time I look at the floor.
• Bras are the devil.  I wonder if I would've made a good feminist ninja hippy back in the days when bras got thrown into the fire.  I feel like throwing mine in a fire all the time.  I'm really going to miss the days of relaxing bra-free when I go back to the land of employment.
• Owning a house is wonderful.  I get to put in a garden, new trees, flowers, paint and repaint walls and ceilings and no one gets to give me shit about it.  The only opinions that matter are mine and the Mister's (and most of the time when I ask his thoughts, he says, "I don't care, it's up to you").
• My dogs make me happier than most humans.  Lily and Amber have been my constant daily companions for a year now.  When we took a short weekend trip recently, I had a really hard time leaving them.  I need to find a job that lets me bring my dogs to work....
• Reading is only a hobby.  I thought that when I had lots of free time, I would just dive into book after book that'd been piling up while I was busy with other stuff.  Strangely, and somewhat of a relief, I've discovered that even with unlimited time available, I read only occasionally.  I think I've only finished a dozen books in the past year.
• Whether due to stress, constant contact with the public, or the combination of the two wearing me down, I got sick a lot when I was working.  I don't think I've had a cold in the year since I quit.  One of the best perks of staying home is avoiding sick people all the time.
• Hallelujah for air conditioning!  A couple of weeks ago it was spitting snow.  Yes, in June.  It happens.  Earlier this week it was almost 100ºF.  The a/c was running all day and could barely keep it cool in here.  I'm SO happy we invested in a heat pump last year.  Woo!

I'm sure there's more stuff I've discovered that I love or hate in the past year, but those are the big ones.

Blog Pictures

It looks like Blogger updated the photo interface, so if you click on a picture in one of the posts, it'll enlarge it and give you a bit of photo-only slide options.  Pretty handy!

Let the greening begin!!

Spring has finally begun here--it did snow last weekend, after all--and stuff is growing like crazy!
I got my first CSA share delivery.  It's my first year of doing this and I'm hopeful it'll make me more versatile with veggies, since that's most of what I'll be getting weekly for 4 months.  I'm pretty excited to have the opportunity to do such a thing.  CSAs can be wonderful efforts at getting access to local, seasonal produce in whatever area someone lives.  This week's delivery included micro greens, radishes (for Papa), some green garlic? (have to research this more), spinach and other salad greens.  Notice all the green stuff in there?  I think the radishes were the only other-colored item and from what I was told, the greens attached to those radishes are actually more nutrient-rich than the veggie itself!

Aside from the CSA, my strawberry plants are even more local.  And boy are they flourishing this year!
If you don't remember what they looked like last year....

Directly after planting.

End of the summer.

And now look at the little buggers!

Happy plants

Dozens of these pretty flowers--soon to be tasty fresh strawberries!

Last year, by the end of summer, the plants on the left were the only ones that produced--and then only a few berries.  The plants on the right just spread everywhere and this year they're finally flowering.  I think we'll have a really good crop.  Yum!
We also planted a raspberry plant and an apricot tree.  Hopefully those will bear fruit next summer.  I *heart* fruit!

Inside the house is our rainforest.  At least, that's what I'm calling it.

There's droplets of water forming on the flowers and leaves of my calla lily plant as well as on the massive leaves of one of the other plants (I have no idea the name--the plant was a gift).

When we lived in the apartment, I almost killed all of my plants.  Well, I guess I didn't kill them, but the lack of sunlight did.  The big-leafed badass won't stop growing now.  Before we moved, it was down to one lonely, pitiful leaf.  So I named the plant Pathetic.

Now it grows leaves so large that the Mister's wanting to pull them off and fan me with them.  His words, not mine.

And it's sprouting individual new leaves from the roots, something I've never seen it do before.  The damn thing is going to take over the house!

*drip...

*drip....

It's a jungle in here

Itty bitty baby leaves waiting to grow up into monsters.

Now to the front of the house....
I decided this year that I wanted to plant a small flower garden.  Of course, this meant doing so in the most difficult way possible.
I wanted local-native plants.  I wanted some bee-friendly flowers.  And I didn't want it to look like anyone else's flower garden.
The first two goals weren't so hard.  One of the local nurseries had an amazing selection of flowering plants to choose from.  I got columbine, which I call honeysuckle because you can suck the sweet nectar out of the petals, I got a couple varieties of shooting stars, some "different" foxglove that grows flowers in the opposite direction of other foxglove(?) and some fern-type stuff that the Mister liked, for ground covering.
They all ended up being in the purple family.  Yay!

Shooting stars

Columbine                            

Foxglove

The flowers were picked, but I had yet to decide how I wanted to edge it.  

There's so many options out there--and all of them, at least the ones available at home improvement stores, were boring to me.

So I hmm'd and grr'd and finally settled on what I wanted, a thin-variety stacked flagstone edging.  How hard could it be to come up with that?  Pretty difficult.

I finally got the number to a local place, thanks to a distant friend, that had lots of stone for me to look at.  I could buy it by the ton.  I bought 120 lbs.  In big chunks.

Which I then got to break apart into the pieces you see below.

I'm thrilled with how it turned out!

Now the flowers just need to establish and bounce back.

The completed garden

Corner.

Look at that pretty slate!

This month we celebrate a couple milestones.
Smudge came to grace our couch with her matching presence 2 years ago this month.  We got the couch, then we got a cat to match it.  And somehow lay precariously on the back without falling off.  And let Lily chew on her head sometimes.

"what!?"

About a month after Smudge joined the family, Lily arrived to wreak havoc.  We got her because she matches the floor.  And because she has got the softest face that needs to be kissed a few dozen times a day.

Lily was born this month.  She'll be 2 next week.  So hard to believe!

Who's a pretty girl?  Me!

Little Lily on her first day with us.

Amber, September 2010.  We bought a house with floors to match her.  :o)

Lastly, a little bit of celebration with Smudge & Lily.  I love watching them argue.

Memory Day

I was cherished from the first moment I drew breath.  As I've been told time and time again by my Mom, my paternal grandfather AKA Granddad loved me like nothing else in the world from the time I was born.
I have very few concrete memories of him.  I know, in my heart, he was just a man, but I also know he was the very best Granddad I could've wished for.
From what I've been told, he told Mom at one point that if he could've taken me for longer when I was a baby, he would've breastfed me if it'd been possible.  That always made me laugh.
He spoiled me and loved me, both immeasurably.  I remember sitting on his knee.  I vaguely remember the sound of his voice.  It's hard to put into words the emotional blanket that wrapped around me when I was with him--I was loved and important, precious and a joy.  I felt all of that and more.
Some things come back in flashes--standing in the garage with him, being out in the garden with him while he weeded and I played with the ladybugs on the asparagus plants, watching him shave in the morning.
Sadly, childhood memories have faded.  Heartbreakingly, my Granddad took ill when I was about 8, I think.  He became emaciated and weak due to the illness.  His spirit was still strong even though his body was not.  I was no longer allowed to sit on his lap or be a kid around him.  When I visited him and my Grandmother, I was reprimanded by her if I listened to him about being playful or hugging him.  It was during one such visit that I must've realized that Grandmother was suddenly something like Granddad's jail keeper and I couldn't be a child around him anymore.
I called Mom and cried and cried and cried to her that I wanted to come home, Grandmother was mean.  After that, I was only allowed to talk to Mom on the phone if I promised Grandmother that I wouldn't cry to her.
It wasn't much longer after that that Granddad died.  I remember being at the funeral.  My aunt got up to talk about Granddad and cried and cried while she tried to speak.  I don't remember crying at all.  Somehow I'd already grieved because he'd been taken away from me first by the illness and then by Grandmother.
If there was ever one person I'd want to talk to who's been in my life and is no longer here, it would be him.  Not just talk to, I guess.  I'd really like to hug him again, tight, for a really long time.  Then I'd tell him I still miss him all the time and ask him if I'm doing ok, have I disappointed him?
I don't know what year, but my Granddad wrote a poem about me.  My Grandmother included it in a letter she sent to me about 10 years ago.
My Granddad wrote a poem.  About me.  It's probably not the best poem in written history to anyone but me.  I don't know if he ever wrote anything else, stories or other poetry, but this poem may be one of the most cherished items I have because I know he must've loved me immensely if he'd written something like this.

My Granddad and Me

On December Eleventh from one to three,

I sat and played on my Granddad's knee. 

My temperament and demeanor was something to behold,

As I sat there enthralled without being told. 

The music was playing and the sun was quite bright,

As I listened and looked at the world with delight. 

My world is so small and requires some attention,

If only folks would allow it without all the pretensions. 

My Granddad doesn't encourage me to be cute or bright,

He lets me be me and do what I like. 

I jabbered and sputtered and took it all in,

As he watched with great joy and a silly little grin. 

He says no-no whenever he must,

But that's O.K. for I have violated his trust. 

He's reassuring and as loving as can be,

Especially those times I sit on his knee. 

All this is possible as you can see,

Cause I like him and he likes me. 

WHT

Thanks to my aunt, I know more now about what an incredible person my Granddad was, including more information about his service time in the Air Force.  So today, on Memorial Day, I remember him for the warm and lovely memories, no matter how foggy they may be, and am grateful to him, my Grandpa and my Uncle Mike for their contributions to our country.

Dear Republicans...

Republicans need to get in my vagina!

Yay for funny people!

Time flies at supersonic speed

Like, speed-of-light speed!  How is it possible that the year is almost half over already?!?!?!

Nothing major happening here.  We're such bland folks.

Since spring has arrived, complete with Friday 80's and Saturday sky poo, I've started mowing the lawn again (when there's no sky poo on it, of course).

I also got it into my head that I wanted to put a flower garden along the front of the porch.  At this point, we have no landscaping done to the front yard, but let's fix that!

So off we went, to burn some money in flowers and dirt.  I got only perennials because I don't want to re-plant and re-pay every year for new flower.  Without listing the actual scientific names, I can say that I have two species of shooting star (Montana native), some foxglove, and a flower I call honeysuckle because it has nectar you can suck out of the petals.  All in the purple color family.  So excited for them to all bloom!

Pictures will be posted when that happens....

Not only did we put in a flower garden, but I wanted it to be super pretty.  Naturally, this was a pain in the ass.

I wanted to use a rock edging on it.  So we went to Lowe's and we went to Home Depot, then we went to Kenyon Noble and came up with....jack shit!  Everything I saw was either too big for the little garden or too ugly because it's manufactured "bricks" of stuff.  Or both.

I wanted to be able to stack rock.  Natural rock.

Thanks to a know-it-all friend, I found a place that sells rocks.  Generally for construction and house-building.  So my 120 lbs. of rock came to a whopping total of $24.  Woo!

I found some beautiful shale in thinner sheets and chunks.  Then I broke it down more.  Into roughly hand-sized pieces.  The result isn't perfect, and will take some tweaking soon, but I love it!

First summer project 50% complete.  Now we move on to landscaping around the power boxes at the corner of the property.  A nuisance to try to mow around, so we need to find some rocks to plant there.

Next up, another pain in the ass--the ice cream maker.

I have to say, I never thought making an impulse buy at Costco for $20 would cost so much more.

I bought an ice cream maker.  I had a brilliant thought that, Hey, I can make my own delicious, organic, healthier-I-hope ice cream/sorbet/frozen yogurt at home!

I bring it home, unpack it, almost beside myself with glee that I can make my own ice cream.  The Mister LOVES ice cream in the summer.  He gets this ridiculous chocolate and peanut butter concoction from Coldstone, usually by the quart.  I'm going to save us so much money!

....or not.

In order to make anything with fruit, I need a food processor to puree it.  And then I need a mesh strainer to get the seeds out.

Do I have either a mesh strainer OR a food processor?  Of course not!!  That would just be too easy!

Instead of spending the money on more stuff, I decide I'll take the ice cream maker back for a refund.

Instead of that happening, the Mister decides we need to go out and get a food processor and mesh strainer.  So instead of saving money and getting a decent ice cream maker for $20, we spent an additional $150 getting the other gadgets.  

Who needs to save money?  That's just silly talk.

Completely off-topic, I did hear this week that the person who replaced me at the former office is quitting.  She didn't even last a year.

I wish I could say I was shocked.

The Mister

I am a lucky, lucky girl.  I tell myself that at least a couple times a week.  Not because I'm trying to trick myself into believing it, but because it's true.

I'm married to a truly wonderful man.  Yes, he's fucked up, made mistakes, but so have I.  I still love him passionately and he, apparently, after knowing me for 13 years, still loves me.

The beginning of our relationship was rocky, an emotional roller coaster (I'm talking Six Flags here, people, not the county fair), but we've since settled into a supportive, encouraging, stable partnership.
He's let me be who I am--let me live with him in Canada with no expectations of getting a job since we were constantly "we'll leave next month", pushed me to finish my college education while working part time, and once he was in a position to support us both, let me know it was ok for me not to work if I didn't want to.
That's the hard part for me:  I was raised to believe I was an independent, strong woman who could do it all alone.  Then I fell in love and the man I'm with allows me to stay at home if I so wish.  And I do wish.  I also wish I could get a job in my field, since he really wanted me to finish school.
While I wait for that opportunity, I get to be an at-home wife, cooking and cleaning while he's out working to provide for us. When he comes home at the end of the day, I'm not exhausted from dealing with people all day long (which can be extremely exhausting for introverts) and he can tell me about his day, whether it was good or bad, without me having a negative reaction because of my own shit (like I did when I was at my last job).
I've never had any other romantic relationship, so I don't know how this compares, but to me it feels pretty damn awesome--but that could be because I'm a spoiled little shit.

Speaking of...

Jobs.  A couple months ago, a good friend of mine told me about a job opening that might be coming up this summer--a temporary, full-time position that (I thought she said) had to do with document scanning.  In my last two jobs, I've done that.  I'm pretty competent at it.  So I thought, hey, maybe I should apply for the job.  Especially since I know the people in the office and we've worked together in the past.
Then she suggested I contact her co-worker, who was my internship supervisor when I was in school.  We had a good working relationship then (and it's how I met my friend), so I e-mailed him today.
...And now I'm freaking out.

It turns out the job is full-time permanent.  And, from the bit he mentioned, it's got to do with mapping.
I LOVE maps.  Seriously, if I could study a new map every day, it'd be the best thing ever.
But, I was hoping for a part-time job.  I'm so fucked up in my head after everything that happened at the former job.  I'm afraid of going into another office environment and getting the same treatment from different people.  I'm scared that if I stay too long, people will start to get sick of me, act like a bully, or just have a bitchy attitude again.
This time, I know going in, to not pretend to be comfortable talking to people.  I don't want people to get offended because I suddenly want to be quiet--I have to be quiet going in.

And the GIS aspect scares the living daylights out of me, because it makes the job something that I probably won't be able to do at all, so, fuck.
So either I can do the job (with help in the beginning) and I'm back in a setting where I'm scared shitless.  Or I can't do the job, I'm not qualified enough, so I get turned down, again, for another job.

I'm going to go cry, throw up, or have a panic attack now.

A New Start

The Mister got a job, yay!
He's training at the home store on the other side of the hill (mountain pass) for a few weeks, then he'll be working closer to home at a satellite store that's being constructed right now.
After living with him 24/7 for 3 months, I thought for sure that I would have a hard time being by myself again.  It was nice to have the time together, but I'm happy he's got a job again because I know it'll help his emotional balance in a way that spending time together couldn't.
While I appear to thrive on time at home, he (as an extrovert) got a lot of enjoyment out of being around people all day.  He also feels that he needs to be the provider in our household, so he feels better making a living, too.
Unfortunately, we only have one vehicle, which he obviously has to take while he's training in another town.  So I'm homebound again.  And hoping that once he gets settled in at the satellite store, I can start chauffeuring him to and from work so I can use the car when necessary.  Which I seriously hope isn't too long, because I'd like to get at least a part-time job to help out.
I've found myself somewhat "haunted" by my previous job.  I can't seem to move on from the things that were said and done while I was there.  My biggest hope is that if I get another job, I can replace those workplace memories that still upset me with new, happier memories.

In the meantime, I get to play the housewife again while my man is out bringing home the bacon.

mmmm, bacon

Tough Decisions

Do I...get a really cute bag that screams out to me that, oh, you just have to have it because the outside is lovely but it's bigger than I want?  Bag screaming "Mel!! Pick me!!"
or
Do I get the practical bag that would be more organized and the right size?  Practical, organized Mel

Which, btw, so happy I'm not a shoe or bag or clothing fiend because HOLY HELL some of that shit's stupid expensive.  And me being my mother's daughter, I only like the expensive stuff.

I'll stick with my books and occasional Apple products, thank you very much.

If only they could tell me which bag to get....