Karma for snarkiness

So, my last post was a little snarky with regards to the weather. I have paid for it, or at least my little basil seedlings did. I forgot to water them and then they baked to death in the whopping 68ish degree heat wave we had. All right universe, lesson learned.

Watch out for that nasty heat!

Here is something I saw today on weather.com. Please note the part in red type. It is a link on protecting your plants from heat. Considering the anticipated high and low temperatures for the day, I don't think we need to worry about the "heat" impacting the plants. We often have what we call June Gloom here in the Seattle area, but the temps have been lower than normal this June.

One Local Summer

My family and I are participating in One Local Summer. It is a commitment to eat one entirely local meal every week throughout the summer.

For our first meal we had a goat cheese and sorrel omelet with raw spinach. The eggs came from Yelm, which is 74 miles away. The goat cheese came from Bainbridge Island, about 20 miles away. The sorrel and the spinach came from our garden. The only non-local ingredient was butter. I haven't found an organic local source yet.

Next time I will take pictures.

Mosaic meme

Credit where credit is due: 1. Evelyn Genevieve Sharp, 2. Scone Medicine, 3. Black and White, 4. yawn, 5. Dreaming............., 6. Sparkling rain in the city of Champagne, 7. HPIM6045, 8. calce e mattoni - bricks and cement, 9. Day 3 - I write, 10. Chicken A Go-Go, 11. sunday shower, 12. Fi-and-Rebecca


The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name

You can play too. Found at Pea Soup.

Something learned

I am in my late thirties, my very late thirties, and I think that I have finally learned something very important. Planning is the key to success. What do I mean by success? Well, I mean actually paying bills on time, paying off debt, eating healthful homemade food, getting places on time, having savings, having a garden, and the list goes on. I admit that I am somewhat adverse to planning, and I have found that that attitude makes things very difficult at times. It actually makes things rather chaotic.

When I was young I was surrounded by chaos and to combat that I became very regimented about how I did things. I would even go so far as to say I was obsessive-compulsive about "a place for everything and everything in it's place." I broke with that chaos in my mid-twenties and ever since then I haven't been regimented about anything. It is so strange; with chaos, I imposed order, without chaos, I impose chaos. Recently I've noticed, time and again, that planning seems to be the only way to accomplish the things I want to accomplish.

When I started the Riot for Austerity I was quite good at planning in order to meet goals, but it fell by the wayside. I tripped up and became discouraged and fell farther and farther behind, and felt guiltier and guiltier. I will work on starting again after I fall. I read on a quilting website once that you should "Never try to catch up, just keep working." I think that is something good for me to remember. I am currently impressed with Celtic Mommy and her 101 things in 1001 days. I've started a list for myself based on hers, but I'm focusing on things to do within the next year.

Anyway, I am going to try adding more planning into my life. (My internal editor is screaming at me that I am a joke and this is a joke and I am pathetic, etc. Well, I say, f*ck off.) I have committed to posting to my What Grows There blog twice a week because it is pretty easy. I will commit to posting to this blog once a week.

So, I have figured something out, but now I have to figure out how to incorporate it in my life and keep it there.

Some facts about me! Meme

I tagged myself, via Our Red House.


Some facts about me!


1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.

2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.

3. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people and posts their name, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

What was I doing 10 years ago?

I was living in a nice one bedroom apartment in one suburb of Seattle and commuting by bus (I had no car) to another suburb to work. I had a lovely cat and my fiancé had just moved in with me.

Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world:

First I must state for the record that I do not avoid snacks because of their caloric/fat/sugar etc content, so I will list my first five favorite snacks and go on to my second set of five favorites in the following category.

1. Oat Scones
2. Plain scones with clotted cream (I have only had these a few times in my life, but they are so very good.)
3. A Latte or Mocha, depending on the mood
4. Ice Cream, specifically Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby
5. Dill pickles

Five snacks I enjoy in the real world: (or really my favorite snacks 6-10)

1. Coca Cola
2. BBQ potato chips
3. String cheese
4. Cashews
5. Apples

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. I would provide education for as many people as I could.
2. I would build a room in my house that would be just for cats, it would have ramps and sunlights and caves and innumerable cat toys.
3. I would never clean my house again. It would be someone else's job.
4. I would travel and stay places months on end so that I would really get to know them and the people who lived there.
5. I would have another child or two.


Five jobs that I have had:

1. Raspberry picker
2. Veterinary Asst
3. Army linguist
4. Customer care representative in a call center
5. Software quality engineer

Three of my habits:

1. Read everyday. I love books.
2. Open all of the blinds and curtains in the house (if I am feeling good, if they are all closed that is generally a bad sign.)
3. Turn off the lights. I prefer daylight (no matter how dim) to lamp light any time, plus I try to conserve energy.

Five places I have lived:

1. Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan
2. San Diego, CA, USA
3. Encinitas, CA, USA
4. Monterey, CA, USA
5. Seattle, WA, USA

Five people I want to get to know better: (A nice way of saying TAG!)

1. a garden of nna mmoy
2. secondhand gods
3. Franny Kate's Creative State
4. The View From Elsewhere
5. don't wake the pretty

I can't remember if some of the above do not do memes. No worries if you don't want to do it. I also invite anyone who would like to do the meme who is not on the list to join in and give it a go. Please leave a comment if you do, as I would like to read what you have to say.