Why is my house in such disarray?

Oh, right. It's because I've been out having fun. I'm not to the point where I'm grossed out by the floor or anything, but the clutter around here is getting to "must do something soon" levels.

Saturday Mr W and I joined some friends for swimming at our local reservoir. Due to it being a wet year (for around here) the reservoir is really full. Gloriously full. I guess the rain has made it so farmers (the primary users of the water) aren't drawing down as much water for their needs. It was nice to float and chat. 

I went to a party, we saw a movie, and I had dinner with new friend M. We are both content with seeing how it goes. He's got a different life than I do, much less structured. But it's been fun to get to know someone new and it looks like we'll do something this weekend. It is NICE not to be fretting about it. Nice indeed. 

Something has shifted in my outlook/confidence, and I think it's due to my starting this jogging thing. I started, ostensibly, for Mr W's sake, so I could help him establish the habit of running and then get something out of his participation in cross country this fall. We were two weeks into the C25K (couch to 5K) program (an app on my phone) and I was so sore, I didn't think I could do it. I could feel his interest waning if I was going to quit, so I kept at it and figured out that I need to stretch, daily, to feel good. 

And here we are, about three months into it. He wants to just concentrate on getting faster and faster at running 20 minutes (which is something like the 2K they do for CC races), and I want to do my shuffle (12 minute mile - woot!) for 25-30 minutes. So, I've been going out just with the dog, and riding my bike when he does his run. It works.

The one thing

We used to have a TV, a 18" thick picture-tube-analog behemoth that I picked up at a garage sale for $10. It was used mostly to watch videos from the library, and I am fortunate that there is a TV antenna in the attic that I hooked up to the TV to get local channels.

Back in 2009 (I think) the signal for broadcast TV became digital, and to continue to use my TV, I'd have to get a converter box. I guess I didn't want one badly enough to get the box, and the TV went downstairs and was never hooked up again.

We certainly don't lack for media opportunities here. I subscribe to Netflix, our laptops have CD players for movies, and Mr W watches lots of stuff on YouTube.

However, there is one time, every once in a while, when I really want a TV.

For the last three Olympics, I have yearned to be able to watch events, but not in the advertising-riddled way one can do it online. So I had planned to finally get a converter box, haul the big ol' TV up from the basement, and get it connected to the antenna, which connects via a coaxial cable that is in my living room.

The converter boxes are about $50 (do you see the rationalization and where this is going?). If I had a new TV, then I wouldn't need the converter and it could be hooked up directly to the antenna and I could watch the Olympics. I've been intimidated at the level of technical expertise required to make a new TV receive a cable signal and the other inputs, and sound, blah blah blah, but if I could just plug in the TV, and plug in the antenna and it worked, that would be good, right?

I think so. I went to Target and got a 32" TV for $199. It's like a big computer monitor, and weighs about 10-15 lbs. We can plug Mr W's PC into it (so they say) and stream Netflix or play games on it. I have to see if I can do the same with my Mac. After the Olympics, I'll need to see about threading the antenna cable through the floor so the TV can go down the basement.

It's out of the box and on my floor, I'll get it hooked up when I get home from work tonight. Fingers crossed I catch the opening ceremony!

2 hour delay

We received about 6" of snow last night, so there is a two hour delay for the schools this morning. I am relieved, because it's really hard to shovel out and get the kid where he needs to be by 7:30. This way

I get to make a blog post, do a bit of knitting, and will still have enough time to shovel.

It's funny, the school district is of course on Facebook, and under the announcement that there is a delay instead of a full closure, there are comments like, "Really?? Have you looked outside?" and the classic, "You guys are idiots. If you think two hours are enough to clear the roads, you are totally oblivious..." blah blah blah. Safety! Think of the children! We do usually have nice weather here, but it IS Colorado, and the climate means that we occasionally get large dumps of snow.

I need to get a second snow shovel because Mr W is finally a reliable second shoveler. His quality standards are not quite up to mine yet, but he's trainable. I'll have him clean off the car first and then help shovel out the entrance to the alley. I park my car behind my house, and I have to enter the alley to get to the driveway. The alley always gets "plowed in" when the snow plows go by, so I need to shovel it out as well.

But I'll get a bit of time to work on my Leaflet, and I snapped the picture above this morning to show my progress. All hail the thick yarn!! I'm hoping the yarn store is open today because I'll need to purchase a longer circular needle. I had a 24" on hand, but need a 32". The fuzzy Pastaza yarn I have doesn't have super stitch definition, but it was in my stash (and thus free) and I like working with it so far.

My work life is about to change a bit. We're getting a foreign student in the lab to do her Master's project and I'll be in charge of her. This was more or less foisted upon me and I'm going to turn lemons to lemonade. Not that I have anything against having some help but I've set up my work at work to be a solo venture. I've been thinking about what we can have her do, and I talked with my boss yesterday about it and I think we can come up with the stand-alone project she needs that is related to the stuff I'm doing, but my stuff doesn't depend on her outcomes.

Since she's from outside the US, the security stuff is extensive and she'll need to be escorted around the building for the first month or so that she's here. My boss offered to do some of the escorting, but her cube will be near mine, so it will fall to me to do most of it. It'll all work out, but I'm uncertain of the details. She's here for a year.

It's the little things

This is a trivial post, so proceed with that knowledge.

It seems inevitable. I use a dishcloth and a scrubby sponge in the kitchen, and I dutifully wring them out and set them to dry after every use. I get icked out by the thought of either sitting there, soaking wet and breeding bacteria. And the sponge in the breakroom sink at work? Forget it. I take my dirty dishes home.

Anyway, the cloths and the sponge eventually get that weird smell to them. I toss the sponge and replace it with a new one, but washing the rags eventually doesn't help. It must have been Pinterest that gave me the idea, but I took big pot, filled it most of the way with hot tap water, added a cup and a half of white vinegar and all the cloths, and let it sit for an hour. I then washed all the cloths in the washing machine. And you know what? It seems to have helped. pH changes or something...
Yep, it's the little things.

In other news, my back pain continues to be gone and I couldn't be happier about that. I realized how much the worry over it was eating at me and feel like a weight has been lifted.

In other other news, I am headed back to Las Vegas in a couple of months, this time for my brother's 50th birthday. We all had so much fun at my SIL's (his wife's) Vegas celebration last year, we're back for more. Found a cheap (relatively) place to stay downtown, and am looking forward to it.

Farewell, trusty Honda Civic

Today's the day (finally!) that the tow truck is coming to haul away my Honda Civic. The paperwork has been completed, the title has been transferred and the car is being donated to my local public radio station. I bought a Prius C in April and the Civic's been on the street waiting for someone to do something with it.

I said goodbye this morning. It seemed fitting, as it provided me with 18 years of reliable service. For all the times I thought something could go wrong, or smelled someone else's burning engine smell and it turned out everything was fine, it was an all around great car.

She needs a little sprucing up and for her engine to run for a while to get the cobwebs out, but will provide hopefully a few more years of reliable service for someone who needs basic transportation.

The Civic was the first new car I ever bought, and I got it when we lived in Toledo, in 1995. The tail lights, reverse lights and the little light that illuminates the license plate never needed replacing. They never went out. I replaced one headlight once. The blinkers have always worked. The doors close solidly. The rear defroster has always worked. The after-market cruise control has always worked.

Truly, they don't make inexpensive compact cars like that anymore. My mechanic said once that someone who knows what they're doing could keep a car like that going for a long time. That's good to hear and I hope someone does.

Godspeed, little Civic.

Assumptions

A week or so ago, I heard Sally walking around in the living room (where she sleeps) before I got up. When I came out, she was staring at a spot on the wall behind the phone table, and it was then I figured I had a mouse. It's that time of year. 

I didn't have any mice last year, but the year before that I had several. A pregnant one might have moved in, it seemed. I had always been an advocate of snap traps as humane and effective, but that was when someone suggested the grey plastic ones pictured above. Truly a better mouse trap. 

Fast forward to Sunday night, where I went to play board games, and got home around 6:30. I fed and walked the dog, and was done with that around 7:30. I had had the traps set for a couple of days, and didn't think about those much.

Around 3:30, Sally starts pacing outside my door. Back and forth. I assume she has seen the mouse, and since I can't do anything about it, I mostly ignore her, and then holler to go lay down now. When I finally get up at 5:30 she is frantic because she has to pee so bad, because I forgot to take her out one last time because it was dark when we got back from our walk at 7:30. Geez. 

I find the mouse in this trap. Guess it wasn't the mouse after all.

We proceed through the usual morning routine, and I let her outside to the yard while I get my breakfast. Just after that, Mr W's dad stops by to drop off the kid's stuff for the week, and the dog barks and seems to want to come inside. I let the dog in and leave for work.

Mr W and I come home to find that Sal has pooped and peed on the rug, and apparently did neither of these things when she had the chance in the morning. Totally off schedule.

But all seems to be well now, and we're back on it. I'm glad I caught the mouse early in the process. They do make a mess. I've gotten better about storing food, too, so it must have been moving around a lot to try to find something to eat. No more zipping around behind the cabinets - ha! 

Hopefully today will be less eventful.

I don't want to seem ungrateful

But I am tired of shoveling!! My back hurts. My arms hurt. I think we've gotten close to two feet of snow since Monday night. We got sent home early Monday, had a late start yesterday, and got sent home early today. That's all good stuff, but the shoveling has been a drag.

Here's my recycle bin sometime Monday (I think. It's all running together).

For those of you who asked for a picture of my new car, it's there in the front of the picture. I guess I'll wait a bit to take a better photo of it. 

I'm always paranoid about not being able to get out of the alley, so I shovel out the apron where the alley meets the street because when the plows go by, they push a little wall of snow across it. Today I also shoveled out part of the alley where I would have to back up to get out. The snow is heavy! 

But we really need the precipitation, so I'll try to remember that this is a good thing. Now I'm going to swallow some Advil.

Juxtaposition

It will be another out of sorts day. The bombings at the Boston Marathon yesterday coupled with a bunch of snow make me a little anxious. This quote from Fred Rogers has been making the rounds on Facebook:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

It helps me some to think that this is the way that we really are. That if something bad happens our instinct is to help. We as a society think this is the right thing to do. We probably don't even think, we just do it. 

One thing I'm trying to do, with limited success, is to NOT tune in for the continuous coverage. The speculation, the hypotheses, the leads. I think this is good for my mental health in that it keeps me from re-experiencing the shock and disbelief over and over again. 

And we finally got a big dump of snow. About a foot or so. Yesterday it was very heavy, but overnight it was fluffier, so it won't be as much work to shovel. Schools are on a two-hour delay, and work takes its cue from the schools, so we are also on a delay. This seems petty in comparison, but I have an irrational fear that someone is going to hit my new car. It handles well in the snow, but there are plenty of people who drive like they think their all-wheel drive car makes them invincible and able to stop on a dime. 

While I'm at it, I think the tree in my yard is pushing the garage into my house. Again. I have a large fir tree in the corner of my property, behind the garage, and its trunk is very close to the roof of the garage. I had to get the roof of the garage trimmed away from the trunk a few years ago because the trunk of the tree was pushing the garage into the house. There is a tiny bit of room (an inch or two) there because of roof overhangs and Mr W's room expansion. There is a solution, and I will find it.

So the juxtaposition of another national tragedy and weather anxiety makes me feel a little goofy today. It was hard to concentrate yesterday, and I'm glad I've got a bunch of data processing stuff to do today that is pretty mindless.

Tomorrow will be better.

Auto Emeritus

Well, after 18 years of loyal service, I have retired my 1995 Civic and purchased a new car. Meet C:

I don't have the heart to get rid of the Civic yet, and it is relegated to the dog's car at the moment. It's not worth anything, but might make a good beater car for Mr W. That phase is only four years away. We'll see. There's plenty of parking on the street outside my house, and it is cheap to keep the Civic. I'm designating the Civic "auto emeritus", like a retired college professor who still hangs around. 

C is a Prius C. The baby Prius. It's subcompact, so about the size of a Honda Fit, which was my other choice, except the Fit just didn't deliver in the gas mileage department. I mean, a small car should get 35-40 miles per gallon, in my opinion, and the fit gets a yawning 30 mpg combined. 

They had two of the trim line (there's four levels) I wanted. I chose this blue color, "Summer Rain Metallic". Cars have come a long way in 18 years in terms of technology. My Civic has airbags, and the SRS light on the dashboard always comes on when I start the car, but after 18 years, who knows if they work or now. C has a bunch of airbags, and that makes me feel safer. 

Here's part of the sticker:

I like that the fuel savings over five years really eats into the price difference between a hybrid and a gasoline engine only car (which was about $3K for what I was looking at). On the down side, it is a little smaller than my Civic. It is a small car. But it has enough room for our stuff if I want to take Mr W and the dog on a road trip. 

I also like how there's all these readouts and calculations that the car's computer does, and one can scroll through the different screens to see information about gas mileage in real time. It also provides feedback as one drives, which I think really does train the driver to get the best gas mileage possible. The key is to drive like a person who is not in any kind of hurry. Avoiding punching the accelerator and then leaving plenty of time to stop (which charges the battery) look to be the way to go. 

We're getting snow right now. Fingers crossed that I don't get in an accident! 

Parade Photo

It was a so-so St. Patrick's Day parade this year. Not sure why. Maybe because we got there a little late and had to jostle for position. Maybe in this age of instant gratification the stop-start nature of the parade participants was a little annoying. Maybe the floats this year were kind of *yawn*. 

One of the solid traditions of this parade is that a lot of candy is passed out. They used to just throw it on the ground and kids would grab what they could. It has evolved into more of a Halloween thing, where kids have bags and people walk down the line and put candy in bags, one at a time. 

Mr W likes getting candy from the parade, but had his feelings hurt when he was passed over often in favor of the littler kids near him. At one point he said, "I'm only 12!" I guess that's about the age when the candy stuff ends, I was sorry to note. I don't know, he's about five and a half feet tall, maybe they thought he was even older. 

One definite high point of the festivities was seeing this group of storm troopers. I don't know who they represented, but it was fun to see the group. 

Thanks, Target

I'm not one of those people who is at Target the day after a holiday to scavenge the newly-discounted post-holiday goodies. I do swing by the sale shelves occasionally, though, and picked up an Amaryllis bulb in its own pot sometime after Christmas for around $5. 

The interesting stuff:cost ratio on this purchase has been really high. It doesn't exactly grow in front of your eyes, but almost. It's provided us with a couple of months of observation, and is now on its way out. I have researched how to make it all happen again, and am going to try to get this thing to rebloom next year. It involves lots of sun, then getting it outside, so I'm going to have to repot it into something that has a water reservoir because I'm not that good at remembering to water pots daily. 

I have another Amaryllis that is at least 3 years old (post bloom, probably got that on sale, too) that consists of two leaves that limps along in a darkish corner of my living room and yearns to bloom again, so I'll bring it along for the experiment. 

Mr W was suitable impressed with the growth of the bulb, and asked questions about what was going to happen, which I could reply with, "This, but wait and see, too". Totally worth the $5. 

Slog, but now with more progress

In a continuation of Saturday's activities, I headed back down to the basement yesterday and spent several hours going through boxes and putting things in piles. It snowed some (6") and it was blowing around, so I decided to stay put, cook (cookies and soup) and keep going on the basement boxes.

I'm pleased to say that it wasn't as hard emotionally to get through the rest of the boxes, and that I have indeed looked inside and sorted every box down there. Phew! I have a tally:

7 boxes of files from school and previous jobs that will get recycled
8 bags of trash
12 bags/boxes of stuff to be donated to Goodwill

I need to buy some more plastic boxes, amazingly. There were things that were in cardboard boxes or just in bags, like Mr W's stuffed animals and artwork from school, that I want to put in plastic for long-term storage.

An aside. A couple of years ago I went to one meeting of a book club here in town. While there, I was chatting with a guy whose apartment was in a building that had caught fire (big story, still unresolved). His stuff didn't burn, but a lot was damaged, A) by smoke, and B) by the SPRINKLERS. He said he had stored stuff in flip-top plastic boxes, and that if he had used the kind that have a solid, one piece lid, a lot of his stuff would have been OK. That thought has stuck with me and if I have to buy plastic storage boxes, I get the ones with the one piece lid.

The plan is to move as much as possible into what I call the furnace room, which is dry, but dark and cellar-like. I have a (more or less) finished room as well, that's about 12 x 20, and I want to turn that into usable space. The ceiling is kind of low, but it think it will be nice to finally have another room that Mr W can use if he's got friends over.

This is an idea I saw on Pinterest for making a rug on the cheap out of carpet samples:

She bought some good seaming tape and taped the wrong sides together. I imagine there are bolder colors out there that would make a fun rec room rug.

Feels good to be making progress, but it'll feel even better when it's done. And then I can move the contents of my kitchen down there when it's being remodeled! ;-)

A bit of a slog

In preparation for these alleged home renovations that may be coming, I've been going through the boxes in my basement. I took a lot of boxes when my dad moved out of the house where I grew up. I also have several boxes of pictures, letters and mementos, and have saved a bunch of Mr W's stuff.

It has added up to a lot of boxes.

Since I haven't gone through the stuff since my divorce, I have just now thrown away (or given away, or recycled, as appropriate) things I didn't want anymore that pertained to shared memories from when I was married. This has been weird. I saved pictures of me and Mr W's dad, and put them in the box of his mementos, but I don't want them. I mean, he should be able to see his parents' wedding picture, right? At the same time, it feels like throwing away a part of 15 years of my life. A bit of conundrum, but it felt like the right thing to do with all the things I jettisoned. I still had all the response cards and some invitations from my wedding. And all of the greeting card-type cards we received. I recycled all that stuff.

One thing I'm particularly grateful for is that when I was away at college, I exchanged letters with people. My sister, and my mom too. I'm so grateful to have these kind of mundane documentations of our lives. I have lots of letters from friends too, and kept just about all of them. It makes me want to try to get back to writing letters. It's such a deliberate thing, writing letters. I found a picture of my younger brother and our mom at his high school graduation, and will send it to him and write a little letter to accompany it.

I also found a copy of the last thing my mom wrote, when she was very sick and knew she wasn't going to make it. It was divided into practical things, saying to return things to stores that she had purchased (that's how fast it happened - six weeks. We were blindsided), the songs she wanted at her funeral, her request not to have any heroic measures to prolong her life, and then a couple of lines saying how sorry she was that things ended up like they did and that she loved us all very much.

I felt like someone punched me. I howled in my empty house. But it doesn't change anything. It's in the past and it is done. All I can do is honor her memory (my sister's, too) and live a well-lived life. I was still very sad for a while.

It was a lot of loss to feel in one afternoon. Although I've been working on the boxes for a while, there were a couple today that just got to me. But I keep telling myself there are a finite number of boxes, and once I've gone through them, I can put them away and be done with it. But the process of going through the boxes and organizing the basement, as well as proceeding with the remodeling, they mean something. There's a process underfoot and it's supposed to happen. I don't know if it's finally an acknowledgement that I am really truly on my own (but taking care of myself) or what, but suspect it will become clearer in hindsight.

Thanks for reading this ramble.

Small thing garbage can update

Picture perfect placement yesterday. This is the end of the day and the cans were put back exactly where I set them out that morning. I'm standing in the alley, my little driveway is on the right, as is my back door.

Maybe because it was Valentine's Day.

Geesh, my alley and gardens are not pretty things this time of year. 

Small things like my garbage can

This is a small funny thing. It's Thursday, which means it's garbage day. I live on an alley, and haul my garbage can the short distance from over by the garage, to a spot NEXT to my driveway and on the alley. You know, so I can get out of my driveway and go to work.

About 80% of the time, the garbage-takers will put my empty garbage can not in the spot it was in, but right in my driveway. This means I have to stop in the alley, get out of my car, and move the garbage can so I can pull into my driveway.

It happens with such frequency that there's a little paranoid part of me that thinks they do it on purpose. Then I think, "No one is that petty, are they?" It's these little things that present us with a choice about the degree to which we will get tweaked out about the stuff that happens to us, methinks.

Stay tuned.

What the weekend is for

Poof! There goes another weekend. It was my kid-free weekend, but Mr W had his birthday party over at his dad's, so I helped shlep kids around and watched the opening of the presents. It was fun.

I went to lunch both days with friends I haven't seen for a while. Everyone is busy. It is cool to see several of my friends moving up through the ranks of their professions. Friend J's dad recently passed after five months of hospice care for neurological decline that I don't know was ever defined to everyone's satisfaction. She (the youngest of four kids, two of which are local, as were/are the parents) was the highest-functioning one in the scenario. Discussed things with love, but not sugar-coated with her dad. Supported her mom who in her stress and grief didn't take as good of care of herself as she should. Informed her located-elsewhere sister (who tends to be a bit eccentric anyway) that plans after her dad's death would not include any of the things the sister wanted, but all of the things the parents wanted. Eesh. She is strong, my friend J.

My other friend D is an assistant principal at a high school. Keeps her busy for sure. She had wanted to sell her house and move this year, but after looking around in her price range, it seems people are staying put and there is a dearth of options for what she wants. It's a problem that will likely fix itself in the next year or so, but the situation was such that she's going to stay put and have some renovations done so when she sells it, it's worth a little more than it is presently.

It was good to catch up with friends.

I've been trying to make some jewelry, but have sort of stalled. There's plenty of stuff in my Etsy shop, and I haven't had a sale in a month. I tried some new styles of necklaces, but I'm not sure if I like them. After the holiday push, I feel a little ambivalent about pouring as much time into the process (much of which is promotion). Whereas before the holidays, I spent a lot of time getting ready for craft fairs, I feel freed from that and haven't had trouble finding things to do.

I want to put more time into practicing the banjo. I'm reorganizing the stuff I have stored in my basement. That project is only about 30% done. I have lots of paper stuff from past school and work that seemed important at the time and should now be gone through and recycled. I have to be in the right mood for doing it (not just papers, but all this stuff) because I can tend to throw it all out, or save too much. I want to be somewhere in the middle.

So my kid-free weekends have lately been spent on this stuff: socializing, banjo practice, cooking for the week ahead, exercising the dog, doing house stuff. I guess that's all good. The proportions need to be tweaked so I can get done with the basement because I'm going to be putting things down there if/when the kitchen renovation starts. That should be some motivation.

What are the chances

For reasons unbeknownst to me (I think it was a collaboration day at his school) Mr W was off yesterday. I had not arranged anything with his dad, so I took half a day off and worked half a day. I was busy doing bracelet stuff in the living room, which looks out to my yard as well as the neighbors' yard.

It was kind of noisy outside because the city was doing its leaf clean up, so there were street sweepers doing their thing, and tiny leaf bits being blown around. Around mid-morning, I'm standing behind Mr W, and he says, "Is that smoke?"

I jump the gun and say, "I don't think so. I think it's leaf dust". Then I look more, and it sure looks like there is smoke coming from the direction of the neighbor's compost pile. I had seen one of them go to the pile earlier, and had noted it because I had let the dog out and was thankful that she didn't bark at him. I head outside in my sweatpants and slippers, step up onto their approximately 8 x 8 ft. pile and it is indeed smoldering. In fact, it's burning a hole down into the pile a few inches.

I walk (briskly) back to my house, give them a call, and they're not home. The message was something like, "Um, this is Linda from next door. Your compost pile is smoking and I'm going to dump some water on it." And that's what I do. I dump two buckets' worth and that douses it.

This leaves me a little shaken. The pile is full of dry leaves, and sits on the property line, at the base of my wonderful (and about 50' tall) fir tree. It's between my neighbors' and my old wooden garages. It's entirely possible that the garages (maybe the tree?) could have caught fire. The corner of the roof of my garage is a few inches from my house.

The thing is, I am almost NEVER home at that hour. If I hadn't been there, things really could have turned out badly. They called later and left a message on the machine, obviously a little shaken at what could have happened and promising to check the ashes to their smallish outdoor fire pit much more carefully in the future. Those ashes sat all night, with lows in the 20's, and were still hot enough to burn leaves.

It's a head scratcher. I send sincere thanks to the circumstances that allowed me to notice.

Take my leaves, please

I've lived in my little house for seven years now. Technically, I own two trees: a towering fir that sits behind my garage, and the little apple tree I planted a couple of years ago. Neither is big on fall leaf production. My neighbor has an oak tree on the property line, and I do have two serviceberries on the patch between the sidewalk and the street (we always called it the tree lawn).

Every fall, I revisit the dilema of raking. I don't particularly like to rake, and it seems to me that it makes sense to wait until almost all of the leaves are down to get started raking. This has the potential of annoying the neighbors, as fallen leaves blow to their property. I admit that there have been one or two years when the raking got away from me because a storm came in and blew the leaves away. I have only felt mild guilt at this.

There are renters on the corner that have done a major (as in 10-15 garbage bags' worth) raking job three (3!) times this fall. Their grass has looked immaculate after each effort. For about 2 days.

This year, the leaves on the tree lawn were definitely sitting there waiting to be raked, and I felt the obligation to get them up and out. I think what also made it easier to get out there and do it was that I purchased yard waste pick up from my trash company. So I filled up the bin, plus a couple of bags that will get put in the bin next week. I'll throw whatever's left into the compost pile in the back of my yard. There are a couple of places in town that will accept the leaves for composting for a very small charge.

My leaf duty is almost done for the year. The leaves that are left are contained in my fenced yard and aren't going anywhere, so I can get to those after the craft show this weekend.

Yawn

Happy Day of the Dead! It was a good Halloween last night. It's not unusual at all for Halloween to be cold and snowy here, so the mild weather brought out a lot of trick or treaters. I live one house off of a major trick or treat destination, where people drive their kids in, park on the side streets like mine, and work up and down that avenue.

Given that my dear dog barks (as I'm pretty sure I want her to do) at everyone that comes to the door, I decided I'd sit outside with my laptop and candy bowl and hand out candy that way. That worked pretty well. The people I bought my house from (7 years ago!) stopped by, with the little girl whose birth prompted their move saying, "this is our old house!". How fun. They've got two kids now and we chatted for a bit. I love this house and its location and told them so.

I've been trying to get up earlier, given Mr W's middle school schedule, so my alarm is now set for 5:05 am. I most definitely do not pop out of bed rarin' to go, but don't use the snooze button and don't fall back to sleep while NPR is playing on my clock radio. This is going fairly well, and I'm trying to get to bed a little earlier so I get 7 hours or so.

All week, I've been sleeping for almost exactly 5 hours, then I wake up, use the facilities, and go back to bed for a couple more hours. Several times in the last couple of weeks, I've woken up at 3:08, or 3:13. I think it's wild that a body/mind can wake up at the same time fairly often.

Last night worked the same, but instead of just waking up after a dream ended, I was dreaming that I had my hand down near the edge of some covers on a bed, and a scorpion scuttled out, got on my hand and stung me! I could feel the stinger, like a needle, then it took it out. I was afraid to brush it away because I thought it would bite me, too. I think that's why I didn't brush it off. Note to self: scrape that little nasty thing off post-haste should you ever encounter one on your hand, OK?

Some of my history via houseplants

I've been meaning to do a post on houseplants for a while now. A lot of people keep them in their homes, and I would wager that most people's houseplants were propagated as cuttings from other people's houseplants. I've thought about how cool it would be if we could look at them genetically, and see how swaths of people in certain areas all own what is essentially the same plant. 

Not to mention the connection that a person can feel because they have a plant that was given to them by a person who is no longer around, or is around and the plant just reminds us of them. 

For example, the original plant that the cutting in the middle came from, a Swedish Ivy, was given to my mom by a neighbor who passed away young. It must have been the early 1970's as we had just moved into the house where I grew up. I've got three versions of this plant in my house at the moment, and just started this one. I don't want to be the one who breaks the chain and lets the plant die, you know?

The plant on the left was part of an arrangement someone sent to the funeral home after my mom died. My SIL, who ironically is not a plant person, had the foresight to grab a cutting before the rest of the arrangement was tossed, and they propagated it in their home for a few years. I then took a cutting a few years ago. I've got a couple of these, too. I don't know what the name of it is, but it's a vine, and there is a tremendous plasticity in the leaf shape, depending on how much light it gets. Lots of light makes large (8" x 6") leaves. Not so much light makes smaller, rounder leaves. It's pretty cool. 

You'd recognize the plant on the right if you saw good examples of the leaves. They unfurl with cutouts on them, and they can be large (8-10" across). This one's also a vine. I just looked it up and it's a Split-leaf Philodendron. The Biology Department where I went to school has a large specimen of this plant, and when we started holding classes in a new building next door, the office ladies moved it to the end of a hallway. It was quite an effort, as various parts of it had to be supported either with sticks or from wires hung from the ceiling. Somewhere in the process, a leaf and a bit of stem broke off. Someone put it in a large lab flask, put some water in it, and there it sat in the lab where I taught as a grad student, for most of my last year of school. When I was nearly done with school, there this sat, one tired leaf in a swirling mass of roots. It was an orphan I need to rescue, and it likes its new home. Almost too much, the thing wants to be a really big plant. 

Every summer, I move to the front porch the half-dozen or so houseplants that are in my bedroom. Sometime in October, I move everyone back to my room, which happened this past weekend. I recently moved to a new office space that is direly in need of some green stuff, so in the usual cutting back to tidy up the plants, I made a few starts to eventually take to my office cube. I love how the process continues, that I can utilize these plants to make my new space prettier. And that they mean something to me.

I've also really liked having the starts on my window sill. I don't know, plants have always done that for me. I look for signs of root growth as I do the dishes. It's supposed to be warm for the rest of the week, so I might take one or two of these to work today while the weather's nice. I can then just bring a pot with a bag of soil once the roots are ready. 

Do you have any plants with a past?