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Month: January 2016

little of this, little of that

little of this, little of that

i need to inventory my seeds so i know what i need to get for planting this spring. i know i have enough bean seeds, and i have some tomato seeds. i also need to figure out how to make tomato seedlings that actually survive outside ๐Ÿ™ 
i’m hoping to have another plot this spring – i haven’t gotten anything from community ed yet, but here’s hoping. $15 was well worth the space. 
this year: tomatoes, cucumbers, beans (not as many this year), pumpkins (big ones!), squash, potatoes, peppers, kohlrabi, broccoli, try onions again, carrots (? maybe), rotating lettuce possibly. i threw in some flower seeds at the end, and that was really nice! it was pretty!
that’ll be a nice thing to get started to get through winter doldrums.

easy street

easy street

we’ve actually had it pretty easy this winter. 
it didn’t start to get really cold until after christmas. the first week of september was the warmest week of the summer. thanksgiving was sweatshirt weather. it’s been below zero a few times the past couple weeks, but not TOO bad below zero. (-20ยบ or so – nothing for the true, hardy minnesotan.) measurable snow’s been on the ground for maybe a month and a half. and we’re almost to february.
so why do i want to be done with winter already? i imagine springtime smells, summer mornings, sunsets at 9 p.m. … they haven’t been gone that long, have they?
in the meantime, i’ll browse my seed catalogs and try to figure out how to better curate my garden. think of dew on the grass and try to keep a little bit warm.

not one iota

not one iota

stocks are down due to oil futures. the oil industry is facing layoff and closures. the bakken oil field in north dakota, which only just recently began drilling (2007 or so) and brought north dakota the lowest unemployment rate in the country, is now looking at grim times
and you know what? i’m don’t feel one bit sorry about this. i’m paying $1.70 or so at the pump (compared with $3.99 i was paying for a lot of years), i don’t feel anxious when i see the final price after filling my tank (oh, about $33 instead of almost $70 [i have an 18-gallon tank]), and i have some extra cash. 
when gas prices surged in the early oughts due to the middle-east romps by baby bush, everyone was feeling squeezed by prices. people traveled less. bought more efficient cars. and one would argue, weren’t able to pay their mortgages. is it just coincidence that gas prices surge to $4 and suddenly the housing bubble pops? when you’re filling up 2 times a week at $70 a pop, that’s no chump change. 
 high gas prices made a lot of people in the oil and gas industry during the great recession pretty darn wealthy. ND average pay for oil industry was about $110,000 with entry level at $66K. 
meanwhile, the majority of workers in the country lived in fear of layoffs from 2008 until, oh, 2012-13 or so. forced furloughs, early retirement packages, working a job that wasn’t your own as well as your own job because the person who worked next to you was laid off. at merrill, we were forced to take 10 days unpaid over the course of 2 months. i survived about five rounds of layoffs. for a year, the company didn’t match any 401k. everyone needed to use all their vacation time in the year or we would lose it. this was not uncommon.
not only that, but prices everywhere were going up, because transportation of goods was a lot more expensive. times were good if you were in the market for a house, though; those were cheap.
but now, i have more cash in my pocket, my job’s a little more secure, i don’t fear a layoff as much, and i can build my vacation time. the economy’s supposedly picking up, more jobs are available, and prices of goods are at least stable. gas prices? low low low. is this coincidence? not sure. 
but now i’m supposed to feel sorry that a small pocket of USA jobs is going down the tank? welcome to what the rest of america was facing the past 8 years. 
not one iota of sympathy.

leg day

leg day

last winter i took part in no-shave winter. my legs were nice and furry by the time march 1 rolled around (meteorological spring), and it was very satisfying to finally shave them (so smooth!!).
this year, i went from september to mid-january (shaved for work reasons, haha). once again, nice and smooth.
i was in the tub shaving tonight when i suddenly remembered a very awkward shaving incident i had. 
i was a first year at st. ben’s, and i shared a dorm room with angie englebart. it was near the end of the year, and her family had come to visit. it was warm out, so i decided to shave my legs to wear shorts. it was kind of annoying to have to go to the showers to shave your legs, so i decided to shave in the sink in our room. 
i was just finishing up on the second leg, when i cut myself right down by the ankle on the outside hard-to-reach spot between the bone and achilles tendon. of course, angie and her family chose that moment to come in the room and take a look at me with my leg in the sink, razor in hand, and ankle bleeding out. 
i quickly grabbed my towel and covered up my bleeding ankle, hoping they didn’t think i was some weirdo who did this all the time (seriously, that was the first and only time i did that). 
end my awkward shaving story. and maybe i’ll go another two months before shaving again. we’ll see what spring brings. 

it's good to be home!

it's good to be home!

i missed my cats! i missed my bed! i missed my hubby! it’ll be good to be home for a while! *thumbs up*
in other news, i tried out a graze box. i liked the portions and the variety, but oh my gosh i can’t justify the cost or the waste. i can recycle the box and containers, sure, but it’d be so much more efficient and eco-friendly to take my reusable containers to the co-op and get a bunch of stuff in bulk for on the cheap. is this something i’d do? there’s the kicker. a graze box comes ready to go for $12 to my door. i could see how i do with preparing.
if anyone wants to try a graze box, i have a coupon code!

a whole week?

a whole week?

maybe i’ll work a whole week soon! this monday is MLK day, so i have that day off from work. in past years i’ve dedicated this day to some home improvements, but i’m not sure what it would be this year. maybe i’ll clean the basement out? not sure.
anyway, perhaps the following week i’ll be able to work 40 hours! normalcy would be nice. 
tomorrow charlie will be released from the hospital and ready to go home sans helmet! exciting for him. 
now we just wait to see what grandma’s doing. 
 

Review: Who Do You Love

Review: Who Do You Love

Who Do You Love
Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
i’ve read jennifer weiner since her first book, good in bed, was published. i’ve enjoyed every book, but this was not one i particularly enjoyed. her other books, if i remember correctly, are not romance novels. they typically have a woman who is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t 100% revolve around a man. now, it’s been a while since i’ve read most of her books, so i could be wrong, but my memory tells me that her plotlines generally have other major issues and also include a romantic relationship issue along with it.
this book was pretty much how rachel finds her true love and gets him in the end. sure, she has other things happen in her life, but andy is the overarching theme and the other issues are just piddly things. andy also has his own chapters, describing his life and its ups and downs, and i feel like his life story is a lot more interesting than rachel’s. but rachel is his overarching theme.
and the smut! ok. i do not read romance novels. i am not a romance novel person. i will occasionally run into a book with smut, but generally it’s not pervasive enough to overwhelm the literary factor. i feel like this book’s percentage of smut is above and beyond weiner’s normal levels, and if i’d known it was going to be this enmeshed in the story, i probably wouldn’t have read it.
what could have made this book better? i think if she had written this in first person andy and let rachel take the other side, this may have had potential. less smut? maybe rachel really focusing on her heart issues more? more description and angst over andy’s running problems? i’m not sure.
anyway, i wouldn’t recommend this book with gusto. well, maybe a romance novel enthusiast, but not a jennifer weiner novel enthusiast. be forewarned, jen weiner fans.
View all my reviews

imagination

imagination

here’s what i see when i read the harry potter books.
young neville? ralph wiggum.
ron? ron from kimmmmmmm possible
dumbledore? patrick stewart
and snape? jafar from aladdin. certainly not the snape they had in the movies.
alan rickman died yesterday, and the HP world is awash in horror. while he may have been a great choice, is physical appearance in the movies did NOTHING for me. he needed facial hair. he needed some unkemptness. he needed….to be the sheriff from robin hood: price of thieves.
you say alan rickman? first and foremost, PoT. then harry from love actually. then hans gruber. dogma, galaxy quest. his role as snape was nothing that moved me (i’ll probably get a lot of hate for this). 
imagination is a pretty amazing thing while reading. that’s why i never really enjoy movies made from books i really enjoy, especially ones where i read the book before the movie was even a blip on a radar. it’s the reason i never watched “the time traveler’s wife” and refuse to see a john green book movie. (especially looking for alaska. that is… no.)
of course there are exceptions: shawshank was so amazing in movie form that i picked up the book. lord of the rings was a lot easier to read after seeing the movies. i read the girl with the dragon tattoo and was disturbed, but not as disturbed as seeing the movie (although i enjoyed the movie as well [the swedish version]). 
turns out there will be no adaptation that matches your brain’s view of a book while reading unless you are the one making the movie. and while rickman did a darn good job at snape, it wasn’t what i was expecting and not at all what i wanted. but i’ll remember him in other roles, fantastically acted roles. “loxley! i’ll tear your heart out with a spoon!”

politics 101

politics 101

i’ve always been a big proponent of voting on regular elections, but this year i might actually check out what the caucus system in minnesota is like. 
states either have primaries or caucuses (i think primaries are more prevalent). a caucus is sort of a representative system versus a voting system. this year it’ll take place on march 1 (super tuesday). i’ve already checked out where mine is (the st charles high school), and i’d go and sit in the back to watch how it works. and maybe raise my hand for bernie.
this election cycle may turn out to be very interesting. trump is a blowhard who’s going to alienate a lot of people, and if bernie gets the dem nomination, his lenient view of gun reform may just pull over a few republicans. (although he’s pretty socialist in other views.)
i’ll report back after march 1 and let you know how the system works!
while we’re here, i want to remind myself to spend a blog post looking at the militants in oregon (what exactly is going on? what’s the deal?) and another to express my extreme ambivalence on gun control (literally can’t even make a decision). 

if i win…

if i win…

  1. a pink helicopter
  2. cat haven
  3. house on every continent
  4. chauffeur for the lady who hit charlie
  5. a helipad for my pink helicopter in the middle of the maple grove walking track/veladrome
  6. fancy yurts for everyone (with electricity!)
  7. teslas for everyone
  8. buy as much farmland as possible in SE mn and make it butterfly fields and honeybee sanctuaries
  9. pay off my student loans
  10. BUY A HOUSE WITH A DECK.