Robins, black raspberries, and a very big storm

What do you do when you're tired and just want to lie on the couch but you want to feel productive beyond shifting through inane internet babble? Apparently I decide it's a good time to write a post.

I love watching robins take baths (or avoid them as the teenaged ones do) and various birds drink from the makeshift basin (tupperware container) we have on the patio. It was a happy accident that I had left it out there with water in it once and noticed the birds appreciated it.

Oh, and the garden is still mostly green. There is the tiniest sweet pepper and cucumber, neither of which  I don't think will actually grow up, but the tomatoes are doing pretty well. And potato plants seem to be thriving. I finally moved the lavender from the little container it originally came in into a little pot for each plant but they had started to whither really fast; they were doing quite well earlier.

There was a huge storm Monday morning. Colin woke me up, pointing out the window. I sat up, saw that there was sheets of rain pouring down the window, and fell back into bed hoping for more sleep. "Oh, that's nice," was about all I could muster. The power in our house apparently went out for less than an hour that morning.

We had considered going south to Deerfield that day but decided against it. We went about doing our usual home-bound activities. By mid-afternoon, we'd decided to go run a couple errands and hang out in a coffee shop in an area usually about 20-30 minutes from our house. While driving through our town, we were intrigued by the lack of lights - no stoplights were working and all the businesses looked black and shuttered up. Of course, that didn't ward us off at all. In retrospect it would have been a good time to turn around; we ended up sitting in traffic for three hours. And only being able to get one little thing at a hardware store and grabbing some coffee to go. The cafe was jam packed with people on laptops and everything else except the hospital seemed to be shut down. We went so far we saw the lake.

Tuesday was really not much better; I went to get some milk and other food stuffs at grocery store in the opposite direction that we took the day before. First, I had to pay for gas with cash. Then the store was closed. So I went to another store, which was open but had no milk. Had nothing that usually is kept cold or frozen, in fact.

There are trees and branches down everywhere. I left half an hour earlier than usual for my shift at work this morning anticipating bad traffic but it was actually just fine. However, I learned that some coworkers still don't have power at home, including one who doesn't have running water either. There's apparently something like 100,000 people who probably won't get power back until Saturday.

What was the storm damage to my garden? One unripe tomato ripped off by the wind. We were just plain lucky.

...

I went for a walk near the college today and stumbled across some black raspberries. There was quite a lot of them and it didn't look like anyone or anything had eaten them. They were yummy.

The wedding is in two weeks and one day. We've gotten so much done but it feels like there's still so much to do, despite how low key, small, and simple we're keeping it. I don't want to imagine the headache organizing a more normal wedding would be - ick.

I'm feeling a little more awake now so I'm going to go get more things checked off the wedding to do list.

So I caved in

Earlier, I had mentioned that I was trying to resist maintaining multiple blogs on different topics. This rule has been broken. But - I like to think I have a good reason: I didn't want everyone everywhere to be able to read the new blog.

Don't worry, it's nothing embarrassing; it's just as a SLIS grad I was faced with a privacy dilemma. Last weekend we were in Charlevoix. We came home with a bunch of boxes from my grandparents' house and I wanted some way to share the scans and what I learned with other family members. Having a blog also provides incentive beyond "Ooo this is fun!"

It's not completely restricted to family members only, but since you need to ask me for access I have absolute control over who can see the stuff. So if you're interested in following or seeing what it's like, go ahead and ask for permission and (if I know you as a real person) I would probably let you in. Also, even if I wasn't worried about privacy, I would be worried about having a massive amount of posts that were possibly long and possibly boring (to most people) put up where, frankly, most people could care less about that and be more interested in, well, me and ... whatever else I do? The garden, yes that's it!

Speaking of the garden:
The zucchini plant has lots of buds which is very exciting. The lower leaves on all my pepper plants seem to be breaking off but otherwise they look healthy and half of them have had flowers (one each). The herbs are doing fine despite their lack of space.

Two little potato plants

My potato experiment is promising too; there are 11 separate plants that have sprung up with little bundles of leaves. I resist watering them, especially since they were flooded with the rain a few days ago. They seem happiest having no attention so far.

Today has been a nice relaxed Saturday. We went out for brunch, talked over wedding plans and what else we have to do. On the way home, we stopped for garage sales but didn't get anything (despite our garage sale-ing experience around here, we still hope). Then we went to a nice lake/pond park we hadn't been to and caught bullfrogs. And one teeny tiny toad. There was a family of three kids there who we helped out with how to catch them (and not kill or hurt them). There were a couple caught that still had fairly large tails. It was a lot of fun but it's quite humid today and eventually we left.

A bullfrog

 When we got home, we checked in on the nest in the tree out front where there's currently a dove family. The adult has been slowly getting pushed up out of the nest as the babies grew but it wasn't until today that we could actually see both of the babies. We knew there might be two because Colin had taken a picture earlier of the two eggs and finally we were able to see the face of the second one without having to hold the camera above our heads and take a picture.

The second one shown - the other is hidden by the branch.

Photo proof of what I did last Sunday

I know I mentioned that I cut my hair and all, but I didn't post any pictures yet. Here's a couple:

The before - so. much. hair ...

From behind - the lumpy bits is evidence of having it up in a ponytail or bun
(which was most of the time)

The aftermath - if I pulled it straight it comes to 10.5"

 I don't have any "after" photos of what my head looks like just yet. I know some were taken at the open house but I don't have them myself. Perhaps I'll leave you suspense! At least, until I can get someone (Colin) to take another picture. One thing I would be interested to know before I send the package off to Locks of Love is just how heavy all that hair is ... I just measured the circumference - just over 3.75 inches:

Maybe not the thickest in the world but according to this page (http://www.longhaircareforum.com/showthread.php?t=294247) I've got well more than average. *sigh*

Another thing: It's so much faster to dry it. Colin was quite surprised this morning that I was all done in a lot less time. Plus, no more time spent untangling!

Heat, gardening, wedding planning, and smaller topics

In the words of Neil Gaiman: "Sorry that I've been away. I am a bad blogger." And indeed, it's been two months minus ten days since I've last written.

First, before jumping into what's going on in my life, I love reading the dialogs found here: http://jen-campbell.blogspot.com/search/label/weird%20things%20customers%20say

Summer has unabashedly arrived; the last couple of days has been very hot with the temperature dropping to high 70s at night. I saw 104 degrees on the car dashboard yesterday but that was after it had been sitting in full sunlight in a parking lot a couple hours. The real temperature seemed to hover at 98 and 99 degrees. It's a mere 90 degrees now at noon today.

I've got myself a container garden that was a gift from Colin's mom.
The list:
One zucchini
One cucumber
6 tomatoes
6 bell peppers (3 yellow, 3 red)
An assortment of herbs

There isn't anywhere near enough dirt in the pots so that's my gardening goal of the day. Silly me, I watered the plants this morning so I have to wait a bit. At least I've got all the material. Despite the heat, I've spent the last couple days burying old potato pieces with eyes on them in the clay-ey ground under the eaves (in the late afternoon when watering the garden a second time in the shade). I'm probably drowning the potatoes when I water them but I'm trying to keep them cool. The potatoes are not a high investment project and I needed to dig up the dirt anyway so I could include it in the pots. I'll undoubtedly post updates on the garden. It might even be what prompts future blog posts to happen.

The main reason I've been neglecting the blog is that the big thing happening in my life right now is wedding planning and I wanted to try to tell as many people one-on-one that Colin and I are getting married before I mentioned it here. Which makes it a bit difficult to do any blogging. For those who didn't know yet, I apologize - it's so difficult to get to everyone especially when almost everyone lives so far away.

Let me say right away: This is not a big formal white wedding.

- It is small; just immediate family and close friends. People that have actively been a part of our lives the past 3.5 years we have been a couple. Less than 50.

- It is laid back and casual. I'm only wearing dresses so we can do the whole "bride as the centerpiece" thing. However, I've got plans for the actual ceremony which don't include a white dress.

The wedding is less than two months away. The invitations were going to go out in the mail this week but they won't be done until next Monday. There's still things to be sorted out, but I don't expect the actual planning and preparing to take over as much of my days as it has in the last few days until the time is much closer. (We'll see. This sentence might come back to  taunt me.)

Logistics aside, it's hard for me to put a positive spin on the experience right now. At the same time, I don't want to get into a rant and moan about all the details. I'm kind of confused about this, since it's pretty much a "yay they didn't elope" party, there's so many wedding-y things we're not doing and so many potential fires that aren't happening.  Hopefully things will look better after we spend this weekend with my family; we haven't been to my parents' house since Thanksgiving and my brother's high school graduation open house is on Saturday.

I made zucchini bread a couple days ago that's probably poisonous. So my heart drops with the sight of dropping the whole thing in the trash. I try to keep telling myself "It's better than getting sick from it and next time I won't use the 8x8 pan but have two 8x4 pans like the recipe said to use."

Despite the weather and the stress, I find myself having quite a few happy moments. I wonder if it's my body's way of preventing things from overwhelming my life. Plus, I like the rhythm the garden's needs puts in my day, even the aches and blisters it gives me. Ooo and also I have been reading the Hunger Games trilogy. While not sunshine and daisies, the books are sooo gooood.

I also gave myself a haircut on Sunday. I was so tired of how long it was. It hadn't been that long since sometime in elementary school; it was starting to get caught under my arms and when I had it pulled back (which was most of the time) I would catch my head being tilted too far back because of the weight. I guess the final straw was when I was trying to remake a bun and I broke the pencil when I didn't even think I was pushing it that hard. My hair broke a pencil just by looking at it.

So I lopped off more than enough for what I think is my third Locks of Love donation. I can still pull what's left into a small pony tail and I need to trim it since one side is longer than the other but otherwise I like the layered and slanted bob look. The very instant after I had fully cut through the thick rope (the scene in Princess Bride when Vizzini is cutting the rope at the Cliffs of Insanity doesn't do cutting my hair justice) was the most shocking and relieving. My hair was still in shock for a day or so but I had been looking forward to cutting it for so long I adjusted much quicker.

Okay, it's time to get back to what needs to be done before we leave tonight for Michigan.

Stupid weather gods didn't heed my memo/tweet

When I got up this morning, I opened the blinds and I was greeted with this sight:

I went downstairs, walked up to Colin who was sitting on the couch, and said, "It's snowing!"
"No it's not!" he retorted.
I walked over to the back door and opened the blinds.
"WHAT?" said Colin. "I thought you were sh*tting me!"

Nope.

So it has since then stopped snowing and started dripping off the trees. It is hovering at 34 degrees and the stuff isn't sticking to the pavement, but it's much more snow-like than the stuff that came down on Saturday, melted on impact, and caused me to tweet "It's snowing. Methinks that someone didn't get the memo upstairs. #argh"

Let me repeat myself: I thought it was April ...

Persistent or annoying? How about both?

In the last 11 days, I've gotten 11 phone calls from K College. Not exactly one per day but that's what it averages out to.

My magic google voice assistant prevents the phone from ringing when they call and then it will tell me I missed a call from them. No voicemail messages are ever left.

I have a lot of thoughts on this. Most of it goes something like this: OK I know you want my money. If it was something else (important) you would leave a message. I have a job but it pays very little. Just leave me alone. Pestering me won't make you turn favorable in my eyes and only reminds me of the burns from K College bureaucracy. I admire persistence and I feel for the student callers doing the legwork, but ...

Why aren't they calling Colin too? What makes a new part time reference librarian more likely to be a potential donation source than a software engineer who has held a job more than the average '07 alum?

I think there should be a ten year embargo on recent graduates. Then the memories have time to take a nostalgic sheen, money and stability have more time to occur, etc. It's not like we're going to just forget a place that sucked us dry for four years. Even though I in no way regret going to K College.

Does this make sense to anyone else? Or am I just bitter and cranky?

A few random internet links

http://blog.libraryjournal.com/annoyedlibrarian/2011/04/14/a-success-of-national-library-week/
I personally believe that having an annual Library Week is not a bad thing, but I really enjoyed reading the history of its origins, especially in the annoyedlibrarian's tone.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object.cfm?key=35&objkey=2
Anything to get Helen Keller out of the "poor little deaf and blind girl" image gets an A in my book. Also, it's just one of those things I would have never wondered about on my own - other than someone signing the time to her, how would she know? Or better yet, how did she perceive what time was, without auditory or visual clues?

http://reason.com/archives/2011/04/04/sorry-charley
*gasp* Why, that lying ...
Wait, how come this doesn't surprise me? A writer taking out more than a little creative license. Wow. "It’s not like Steinbeck wrote a phony Holocaust memoir that sullies the memories and souls of millions of victims." A great snippet below (try clicking on the "print" button if you find the flashing ads as distracting as I do).

"Maybe Travels With Charley should be shelved with Steinbeck’s novels instead of in the nonfiction section. All nonfiction is part fiction, and vice versa. It’s not like Steinbeck wrote a phony Holocaust memoir that sullies the memories and souls of millions of victims.


"From what I can gather, Steinbeck didn’t fictionalize in the guise of nonfiction because he wanted to mislead readers or grind some political point. He was desperate. He had a book to make up about a failed road trip, and he had taken virtually no notes. ... Then his publisher, The Viking Press, marketed the book as nonfiction, and the gullible reviewers of the day—from The New York Times to The Atlantic—bought every word."

http://whenparentstext.com/post/4161354029
DAD: I am filling out your income tax 1040. Are you still single? Kids?

Ever read whenparentstext.com? I've been trying to pick a particularly funny one to put here. My dad did something very similar on last year's tax forms he mailed me so I thought I'd share that one. I like the site - perhaps a bit too much, since I can't stop giggling which means Colin has to work in the other room.

I apologize if you didn't care for the randomness of this post ... I wanted to blog something and this is what happened. How is everyone else on this rainy Friday?