I’m surprised that I haven’t posted for a whole week. Not much has happened. I’ve pretty much been lazy – my left hand is not much better and my right hand started acting up. So I’ve gone back to the braces about half the time. I really hate those braces.
The Back Forty is calling me – it is so hard to stop myself from digging and planting. Some wildflowers are coming up in the front yard and I’m considering transplanting them. Violets are everywhere and I gathered them on my walks from time to time, popping the blossoms into a freezer bag for a natural dyeing project later when I can handle it better.
I’ve been pretty depressed this week, actually. Gardening has been my major anti-depressant for some time now, and the food activism and volunteerism has been a thoroughly disheartening experience this past year. We’re still waiting to find out who will take over the operation of the GFCM. I still find myself hoping that the real farmers will relocate and set up a real local market some place else, and let the resellers keep that market.
I plan to plant the small spaces that I have left in the back yard with butterbeans and field peas and herbs. Those, along with leeks and garlic and carrots, are the only things that do well and don’t get eaten totally by the critters. It’s turned cold again so I’ll wait a few more weeks to plant those.
We decided to take out a home equity loan to pay for the new furnace and ac unit, pay off the little left on the car, and a few other things that we’ve needed around here for a long time. I can have the payments taken out of my paycheck every month and it will be cheaper than the car payment was. Now that we are itemizing our deductions it seems to be the smartest thing to do. I think that Sandy and I are pretty safe as far as keeping our jobs for a long time.
With that in mind, I took a plunge and put down a reservation for a beachfront house at Sunset Beach for my family to get together in this summer. My aunt and cousin and cousin-in-law are coming to North Carolina, and this seemed to be the time to do it. It had to be a large house, but it is one of the older ones down there so the price was fairly reasonable. Still, it was almost twice what I expected once the tax was added in and I sort of got myself into it without understanding the real cost. Fortunately there will be plenty of people to pitch in, mainly my sister’s family, so I feel excited instead of stressed about it now. I felt like it was time for me to take the lead in planning one of these family vacations since this has always been my sister’s realm.
Who, by the way, is looking at a house at Lake Waccamaw this weekend, just down the road from my cousin’s house. I hope that it will have room for me to park a tiny house there when I retire. Another big dream! I doubt that I’ll ever get to retire!
I cleared out half of my closet yesterday and took the clothes down to the donation bin at Deep Roots. Now I have room to put some shelves in the other half for studio supplies. I’ll stack boards on books, this time only a couple of shelves up from the floor so that I don’t have another shelving crash disaster.
Today, my goal is to finish the taxes, then make some alcohol dyed and painted papers. Watch the movie Juno. Eat leftover beef stew (beef from Rocking F Farm, carrots and rosemary from my garden, onions, garlic, potatoes, mushrooms from Deep Roots) and make sauce for lasagne or spaghetti with ground turkey from Deep Roots. I’m going to make this a better day.
slowly she turned 