Thoughts on Rain, Gardens, and Life

It’s been a few days since my last post, partly because my motivation to write has gone way down. It started with the rains on Monday and Tuesday – I like to be outside and I fell into the habit up writing for this blog outside my building for the first hour or so after I get to work. This is because I have to physically leave my house before I feel like doing much “work,” and writing is kind of a work. It’s also because my work is more results oriented than it is time, although we are encouraged to be physically present during certain hours it doesn’t truly matter when we’re here most of the time – the real emphasis is on how much we get done. If I’m confined to the building because of rains, then I don’t feel like writing for the blog, I feel like getting my stuff done for work. Anyway, today is a nice day, and I feel a little like I ought to actually post something. It’s a new blog right now and I don’t think anyone but me reads it anyway, but If I want it to have a readership eventually I will need to keep working on it.

The rains have been kind to my garden – everything is looking much healthier now. With the shorter days, it’s too dark to harvest when I get home, and although I have had success harvesting at night with a headlamp, I’s much more challenging to avoid the mud from the rains at night. Now that we are down to one car, it’s more challenging to harvest in the morning, because DH’s job requires a more rigorous adherence to a morning arrival time (like I said, alone, I have the luxury of choosing my own hours, within reason). The lettuce desperately needs to be trimmed now, and there’s probably a pint of cherry tomatoes ready to be picked. I plan to have a “garden” meal this weekend, where we focus on using the fruits of my labors instead of using what’s in the fridge. I also plan to steal all the hot little Fresno chilies and pickle them. While fresh peppers feel very luxurious, I also love pickled peppers, and having the pickles will add some nice variety to my enjoyment of the garden.

On another note, DH and I have been having some settling-in issues. Mine have been based on the challenges of going from plenty of room and lots of independence in my schedule and travel to within a few weeks having no space in the apartment and having my schedule and travel dictated by DH’s plans. I think DH’s main settling-in issues have been based on having a DW getting more and more stressed by the lack of space and independence and also dealing with the slight seasonal affective disorder that brings my mood way down. He’s also not a fan of living so far from work, and I think the morning and nightly commute gets to him. Fixing the one car situation is quickly becoming a priority for me, and that adds to his stress level as he feels it is his responsibility and he gets antsy when I get too interested in one of his responsibilities, especially when he hasn’t felt very motivated to act upon it. I suppose I need to just put a lid on it, get used to the situation, and suck it up.

Strangely enough, the budgeting has caused us no trouble at all. There are many reasons for this success, so perhaps I’ll post this as “yesterday’s” blog and post tips for successful budgeting as today’s post. I still have about 40 minutes of “blog time” before I go get to my “real work” anyway!