Life in the Cheese Drawer

i don’t think i’ve gone this long without blogging since i started my blog. has my creative blogging mantra run out? am i just burnt out on writing? do i just want to lie on the couch and do nothing when i get home?
(it’s #3.)
so i have a piece of dirt churned up and ready for a garden. i even bought a deer fence to keep out those pesky animals. 
i ran another half marathon, which SUUU-UCKED this year for some reason. although i feel a lot better the day after for some reason. added about 20 minutes onto the overall time from last year. BUT the course was really nice and the swag was nice. AND there was food and drink at the end. 
i think my max mileage is 8 miles though. i really don’t want to do another half marathon because at 8 miles of running, i just feel like my life has gone wrong somehow. then around mile 10 i just step into a “well, this is my life now” attitude and run as slowly as possible until the end. so i guess this summer i’m going to be working on speed versus distance. i don’t have a fancy 10-minute-mile goal like liz, but if i can get under 12 pretty regularly, i’ll be happy. 
work has been significantly less stressful, which is really nice. after commencement, it’ll calm down even more, and i’ll almost be zenned out at work. for reference, we had two major projects in the past 6 months (eorientation creation and a complete website migration), my coworker quit, leaving me as a department of one, and i haven’t even been there a year yet :/ we hired me a coworker though, and the two projects are done. maybe i’ll be able to finally get down to some of the work i was actually hired to do! now i have to decide if i’m going to work 4 10-hour days this summer so i have 3-day weekends. hmmmm!! also, with my overtime, i think i’m going to buy a paddleboard!!! WOO.
on an unrelated note, sometimes i hear loons from my backyard. <3

i wasn’t sure if i should title this the clutter or declutter. some sort of compromise, i guess.
i’ve watched two or three videos in the past week that told people to declutter. so i guess it’s time. i went through a bunch of books and have a stack to sell, a stack to donate to the library, and a stack to donate to goodwill. i also have a stack of books that i don’t want but can’t get rid of because they’re inscribed. 
next up is my DVDs. i rarely watch movies off DVD anymore unless they’re holiday related. i do have blu-rays that i watch, but even my herk and xena dvds are available on netflix now (except for two x episodes because of music royalty issues). this is such a weird issue for me. books i can deal with because i know which ones i will read again (HP? yes. hunger games? yes. writing manuals? yes. etc. etc.). movies are a whole other ordeal. once i’ve watched them once, i feel like that’s it. but what if someone comes over and wants to watch a movie and i say i don’t have it? do we rent it from amazon? who knows. 
after that i think it’s time to go through my clothes again. that’s always a fun time. 
then the closet in the guest room, which is full of stuff i never use but need a place for. ugh! 
THEN. in march or april, on that one day when it’s 60º and feels like spring has arrived but really hasn’t, i will clear out my shed and garage!! gotta make room for garden stuff!

after i walk out the door of the college at 6 p.m., my evenings begin. i have about four and a half short hours of free time before bed beckons and i have to start to sleep so i can wake up at the ungodly hour of 6:50. (i know; that’s not that early.)
the sun is high in the sky still at 6, with sunsets after 9 here and the gloaming spreading until after 10. but i know it will go quickly. i eat something, then think about going for a run. after my exercise has eaten 40 minutes and the subsequent post-run stretching and shower another 15, it’s normally close to 8:30. 

at this time, it’s perfect light and weather to be outside. the patio here is situated under a large oak tree and lined with flowers; the peonies are currently blooming, their puffy pinkness bobbing in the breeze. the bleeding hearts have finished blooming, and the tiger lilies are at attention, waiting for their time to bloom. 
i read, maybe look at my phone, gaze at the sunset across the trees and plains. the crickets chirp, the junebugs buzz (YUCK). the sun eventually exits stage west, and i go in. time to settle in so i can enjoy tomorrow’s four hours of evening.

so call me a pansy. it was 50º here today and the sun was out, but it was so windy that i decided to run 6 miles on my treadmill instead of outside. bad form? probably. but i hate running in the wind. it really blows (ahahaaa see what i did there). 
other than the wind, the weather looks fantastic this coming week. 65 on tuesday, great running weather the rest of the week. i’m not surprised at how quickly it warmed up, considering the rest of the winter was kind of weeny. i was listening to mpr the other day, and paul hutner the weather dude was on. he said that this winter, the frost line was only 5″ down. here’s an indication of how insane that is: when building a deck, i need to put concrete 42″ in the ground to get beneath the frost line. so 5″ is REALLY tiny. thanks el niño??
the meeting for my community garden is in early april. i feel like if the weather continues the way it is, this could be bumped up a little bit.
in other news, the land stewardship project is hosting a “land ethic at work” workshop on april 2, which i might go to! it seems really interesting and is at eagle bluff envrionmental center in lanesboro. i applied for a scholarship to go, since it’s a chunk of change to go it, but even if i don’t get a scholarship, i’ll see if i can pull together some funds. (i’d be sad if i can’t.) 
let’s go spring!

the top shelf in my pantry cupboard has been wiggly since the day i moved in. instead of dealing with it then, i decided to just fill it up and deal with it. tonight i finally decided to figure out what was going on.
turns out the builder drilled support holes along the door since the shelves were so long (the shelves go back past the door to the right to the wall). the shelf was too flush with the wall for it to sit on the support properly. i banged around and shoved things around and got the stupid shelf to sit properly. thanks, builders! you’d think they’d get that in there right.
at the same time, it was an opportune moment to clean out the crap in my pantry. tossed a lot of old food and open food. then i found a couple hershey bars i’d forgotten i’d hidden for smores! haha. also, have a gigantic reeses pb cup i got for christmas. mmmm. 
now my pantry’s cleaned for the most part, my fridge is cleared out of crap, and i have some candy. can’t beat that!

this weekend is awesome because i don’t have to go anywhere. january is usually a hermit month for me, so this was especially weird. 
i watched figure skating championships all day today, took a break to have supper with charlie at the good sport, then more ice skating. 
tomorrow it’s time to do some work; i’ve got a couple photos to work on and then my grandma’s funeral mass program to set up as much as i can. 

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!

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.