My Way of Living:
cooking

I coughed. Nothing fancy, just a simple cough. Then a ping in my back bloomed into searing pain, and suddenly I could barely stand up. By Sunday night I couldn’t sit, stand, lay down, or bend, not fun. They said it might be a herniated disk, has anyone else had this? Now here’s the funny parts — getting stuck on the X ray table, being unable to roll off due to the pain. Help, I’ve laid down, and I can’t get up! After the X ray, in the change room, looking at my jeans, my arms and my feet so far apart, wondering how on earth? Hanging onto the walls, and wiggling that’s how. Not being able to pull on your own socks… but I have discovered if you roll on your back, on the bed, you can do it.

I can’t stand for more than 10 minutes, so my husband is cooking, and cleaning… and here I thought this wasn’t such a good thing. Sitting is difficult, most of my time is spend flat, that’s best for the pain… so if I take a while to get back to your blog, now you know why. Hopefully things will be back to normal soon.

Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole. I thank whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul.
- From William Ernest Henley's Invictus

While this seems like the start of something special... .

There's always a story behind a story. And isn't that the fun part?

Prologue

D-Day ,7:00 am.
As the rest of the brave Bataan Death March 102k Ultramarathon warriors were already on their way to Mariveles, Bataan for a full day's rest before the madness begins at midnight, I was, er, in Ateneo. Giving a talk. Yup. gotta love undelegatable work on a Saturday. Which just so happens to be the day of the biggest race of my life. Aaah. Ce'st la vie.

The Support Crew

After some last minute vacillating and a lot of hemming and hawing over supplies, me and my support crew finally left Manila. As I had mentioned in a previous post, my ragtag team was led by best buddy AJ, who they used to say was a dead ringer for Christian Bautista (when he still had hair), immortal internet legend Tito Caloy, and AJ's friend RV. Who at the time, I did not know personally. A near-stranger helping you out on a life experience? Awkward! Suffice to say, he's a tremendous, stand-up guy. And given the circumstances, if you told me that Grimace was to be my support crew, I would have said yes.

Team GBM!

How about meh? =,(

Somewhere in the middle of Pampanga, 4pm

AJ : Just to put things into perspective, from the Petron where we started in Mandaluyong up to this point, that's 102 k already. Ganun kalayo tatakbuhin mo.

GBM : !!!!!!!!!! (x_x)

Villa Imperial, Bataan. 6:30 pm.
So we finally made it to our hotel, if you want to call it that. Most of the Takbo.ph gang were there already. I had Googled the hotel a day before, and it said it "wasn't DOT accredited". I should take these portents of things to come more seriously next time. I had made arrangements with "General Manager" Susan in the crudest way you could imagine (through text, duh. What online reservation?), and told her we would probably get there at 2pm. Given that we got there nearly 7pm, I asked the affable and "machika" caretaker (the only "Hotel" "GM" I've met in pambahay and tsinelas) for a discount.Gave 50% off. Pero secret lang daw. Well, guess the secret's out then. :)

The accommodations were well, yeah. I'd rate it a half star. There was an orchestra of flies in the room, making it a veritable malaria trap. "Babaygonan" na daw muna. I promptly made a beeline to Abby's place to seek refuge with her team while AJ and the team went out to buy some supplies.

With ultra monsters Dennis and Vener upon arrival

Fun before the storm?

Villa Imperial, Bataan. 8:30 pm"Babaygonan" essentially meant that our room would turn into the virtual Auschwitz of flies afterward. They must have thought that it was better to run BDM 102 with me. I tried lying down, was sneezing within 30 minutes. Visions of that creepy crawlie hotel scene in Ocean's 13 came to mind instantaneously.

We'd rather run BDM!
Villa Imperial,Bataan. 9:00
About to leave. Tito Caloy sort of wanted to loosen up. And we all know what that means. The rest of the crew promptly acceded. Gak.

Pangparelaks muna!

Na relaks nga!

Just what I need, a wapaked crew chief.

KM 0, Mariveles, Bataan. 10 pm.
We arrive at ground zero without much aplomb. Souvenir photos at the line and with BR were being snapped incessantly as one could sense a palpable feeling of nervous anticipation in the air. Just a couple of hours more!

With the one and only BR

Ominous sign of things to come? Tito Caloy could care less.

142 brave warriors. How many will make it?
KM 0, Mariveles, Bataan. 11 pm.
As promised, given that BR had dubbed this an international race, the national anthems of the participating countries were played. Nope we didn't have Martin Nievera or Charice Pempengco singing. Instead, BR gave us a full-throated rendition of not only Lupang Hinirang, but the Star-Spangled Banner as well. Raucous applause followed. For the record, no one volunteered to sing the Japanese national anthem.

BR beats Martin any day.

Km 21, Somewhere in Bataan. 2:13 am.
Okay. Still a bit surreal. After talking about this race everyday for several months now, I still couldn't belie ve that I was actually doing this. Was running under the pretext of making good time while under the cover of night. I took great pleasure in doing my best Sir Amado Castro impression in race walking the first 10k uphill. I was actually outpacing some dudes who were running, much to their consternation. Funny, I ran into them later and they resorted to race walking as well. Fun. Was occasionally bolstered by Abby's crew ( Joni, Z, Carins, Pepsi and Carina) screaming "Go Sweetie!!". Such sweet gals. P.S. It was dark. Really dark. The blinkers that we had bought for P149 from Ace Hardware were working perfectly. Steal of the year. P.S. #2 : Tito Caloy is shnoozing in the car while AJ and RV were busy recording everything I drank and ate. Joyride much?

P149 blinkers are the bomb
Km 42, still somewhere in Bataan. 5:31 am
Hit the marathon mark at just over six hours. This is usually game over for most people, myself included. It's a little bit hard to fathom that I'll have to do it all over again plus a near-half mary. I shuddered at the mere thought. But I got myself into this, now I have to back it up. Dhen z and Sam had just passed me somewhere, both of them au naturel in full Bataan Superbods mode. Slight cramps were coming up from time to time, and I had to rely on several efficasent oil rubdowns from AJ.
Up to this point, I had ran a good portion of this stretch with BDM 2009 veterans Ronnie de Lara/ Runnerforchrist, Raiza Tulan and Odessa Coral. Amidst the eerie silence, the casual conversation helped immensely in keeping me sane. Some fun sound bites :

GBM : So Raiza, how did you train for this?
Raiza : I was in Boracay yesterday, sunbathing.
GBM : !!!!

Sir Ronnie : So how come I don't see you listed on TopBlogs anymore?
GBM: Well, I had mine removed. Loads of those sites are SEO-driven, Google-ad moneymakers that don't even remotely resemble blogs. So what's the point right? You could try Alexa though.
Sir Ronnie :Is that a free service?
GBM: Of course, you just type in your site and it gives you your ranking in the whole world. You can even download a widget to put in your blog. Fancy, eh?
Sir Ronnie : I can't believe we're actually talking about this after running for 6 hours.
GBM : Me neither. We're weird.

Raiza : Hello there support crew friends. Are those jellybeans?
AJ: Er, um, they're Skittles...
Raiza : But I like jellybeans!
AJ: Um, but we don't have jellybeans...
Raiza : I don't eat Skittles!
AJ : !!!

Raiza likes her jellybeans.We were also jarred from time to time by an ambulance-riding BR barking out "THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING", Robocop-style, to runners ahead of us who weren't running in single file. Whew.

I just realized that Robocop was also bald... .. KM 50, still somewhere in Bataan, 6:45 am
After more than 7 hours of running, I finally reached the first and only pitstop. BR had prepared some goodies for the runners. It was a fun scene actually, because it resembled more of a camp. Carina was cooking noodles for Abby, who was about 5 kilometers away. People were making a beeline to take showers. I was thinking, no freaking way. It would be hot soon, and people here were chilling. I couldn't stay too long here, am not as strong as these people. So I made a quick wardrobe change (into my Botak Ultra singlet, just for fun) changed socks (no blisters, thank you BodyGlide!) white nyort nyorts (homage to OJ Giron) and promptly sped off.

Nearing Km 50... .

Quick wardrobe change at KM 50 camp... .50 down. 52 to go. The sun was slowly making it's way up the early morning horizon. This is it. This is what would separate the men from the boys. I'm bracing myself for the pain. The suffering.

Little did I know, it would be coming much sooner than I thought.

(to be continued)

First the good stuff. I am half way to a shiny new kitchen, and bathroom. Well shiny new for us, after all this place is over 35 years old, and there is only so much polish that you can add to a sow’s ear to make it into a silk purse. We have taken to calling the kitchen the “football field” referring to the absolute brightness of the gorgeous new track lighting, that feels remarkably like a night game football field. I am not complaining about this, it’s nice to be able to see what you are cooking for once. It’s also pretty wonderful to see the other new kitchen counter tops, tiling, and the shiny new bathroom cupboard. Just think, we are the very first people to put our stuff in there. Wow.

There is a distinct smell of fresh ground coffee in each room, why you might ask, does she want her condo to smell like a Starbucks? Well, lets just say that it absorbs the smell of burning wood, and smoke from the router. As s oon as I clear the sawdust that has settled onto every surface, and can find the containers of coffee grounds I will remove them. Now the not so good stuff. Yesterday…well let’s just say that there have been better days. One thing leads to another. Somehow the drain pipe for the sink is cracked, and when we use the sink, there is water everywhere, I found this out just after I finished painting inside that cupboard. We need a plumber, they are expensive. Not good. And the plug in on the wall where the tiling is doesn’t work now, so we need a electrician. And tonight the dishwasher decided to pout, and now the floor is all wet because it leaks also. So the plumber will be very busy, and very expensive, I know that I picked the wrong career. One thing leads to another, and the next thing you know is that you blow your reno budget. No more beautiful glass mosaic tiles in shades of chocolate, biscuit, and cream, for a backsplash in the bathroom. No it’s going to be pretty basic. But the plumber will be happy on the beach in Hawaii, along with the electrician.

Now let’s talk about the huge mistake I made in choosing this particular tile before asking about how to apply the grout so it won’t fill up all the pretty little holes in the tumbled marble? Have you ever heard of someone having to use a giant icing bag to fill in every little line between the “oh these are so beautiful, let’s use them, and not a boring smooth ceramic tile?” They call it a grout bag, I call it having to ice my tumbled marble tiles. Why don’t they come with a warning? “Caution, grouting in a regular way will fill all the pretty little holes and lead to extremely boring blank squares.” Well, guess what I will be doing for the next week? One thing leads to another. Icing tumbled marble mosaic tiles, all 5 billion of them. And making sure not to fill in all the pretty little holes. Because I choose the ones that are extremely assorted sizes no continuous straight lines. One thing leads to another… .

Scenes from my ever changing mantle, this is today’s look. Who knows what tomorrow holds. There have been icicle lights, and snowflake lights, but I didn’t like all of the white wires so they are gone. Still haven’t painted out the bricks, I am holding off until we paint the living room, and the built in besides the fireplace. One day maybe, it’s on my list.

We might have a small problem with the newly put up Christmas tree, seems it was either thirsty, or we have sprung a leak.

There was a awful lot of water in the reservoir yesterday, and today it was completely dry. Hmmmm, might mean a problem. Especially since neither of us is willing to dismantle the entire tree, lights, and ornaments just to find out if it is leaking, or just thirsty.

We might just leave it up to Bootsie to try and do the job himself, while I was on the phone yesterday he was animatedly batting at a glass ball hung to low on the tree. Standing on his hind legs, and using both paws to bat away at it. This is from a cat who won’t stir for anything less then dinner. There might be trouble in Christmas with a capital “B” which rhymes with “C.” (=^.^=) Who me?

Some of you asked yesterday about the reason why we couldn’t have a live, or cut tree in the condo. It’s because we were a wood frame building, and it’s a fire hazard. The local fire department also outlawed having BBQ’s on the decks. Of course if you are a slightly forgetful elderly man, with penchant for lighting candles in plastic holders and forgetting about them burning all night, until the smoke billows out into the hallway and nearly kills you, that’s perfectly fine. Or if you are another elderly man who decides to put plastic shower curtains all around your stove to keep the cooking smells from the rest of the apartment, that’s perfectly fine, even after they catch on fire, and the toxic smoke makes you pass out, and your neighbours save your life. That’s fine… just don’t have a cut Christmas tree, those are hazardous. Seriously, why do you think we moved?

One of our favourite sayings is “Elvis has left the building”, not because we love Elvis, but it just has such meaning and is multi purpose. Now I am going to have to learn to substitute “my brain has left the building.” It’s not menopause, it’s just life, things happen, life goes forward, and my brain leaves the building without warning. Brain farts, seniors moments, flash drive failure. Loss of train of thought, as in it left the station without you, didn’t they mention it?

You can call it what you want, it’s annoying when you suddenly have this blank spot where just a moment ago there was a thought. Especially when you are cooking dinner, and suddenly the recipe in your head is turned upside down by the total lack of recall. That usually only happens when I am cooking two different things, and forget to concentrate.

We end up with some pretty interesting dishes, coconut curry turkey burgers, and chilli bean, and yam spicy tortilla soup. They were all pretty good tasting, although I don’t know if I would recommend cooking like this.

My husband says I like to cook exotic food, this is the guy who loves creamed corn, I just say my brain has left the building, and the ingredients went with it.

If it’s not menopause what is it? Does your brain leave the building?

The poor thermostat in this house, it goes up, it goes down, and then it goes up again.
I’m cold, he’s hot, and the Boo, well lets just say he hangs out where the heat is.
It’s cold here, inside and out. We have a different idea of what a comfortable indoor temperature consists of… so I bundle up, and he sweats, that way both of us are happy to complain how hot/cold it is to the other.
To stay warm I make sure to layer well, walk outside when the weather permits, drink lots of hot tea, and make tasty homemade soups.
On a cold day, hot soup tastes really good.

Anything that warms you up when your toes are freezing is great.
You can thank Dr.Oz for being the inspiration behind this quick, and easy soup that I made the other day.
He mentioned how good it is to drink a glass of water, with lemon, grated ginger, and a dash of cayenne pepper in it. Supposed to do everything from make your wrinkles disappear, to get your heart racing, or something, I am not sure, it’s Dr. Oz what can I say.
That got me to thinking of soup, I don’t know how… it just did.
I put together some homemade chicken broth, you could use prepared one if you liked. A cooked chicken breast, leeks, carrots, potatoes, ginger, lemon, garlic, and cayenne.
After sautéing the thinly sliced [wash them well] leeks, and half of a onion, and the garlic, in a little dash of butter, I added the carrots, and potatoes cut into small bite size chunks.
This is called sweating the veggies, and brings out the flavours… just imagine how tasty my hot husband is when the thermostat creeps up past 18C. That’s 64 F barely above freezing for my US friends…

I heated up the broth, added almost tender veggies to it, squeezed in some lemon, grated some ginger, and added a careful dash of cayenne pepper for seasoning.
It’s a delicate tasting soup full of flavour, layered with good for you heat.
And it saves you money on your heating bill, because hot chick-a-leekie soup will warm you from the inside out. Give it a try, just don’t go too heavy on the cayenne pepper unless you are taste testing as you go along, that stuff packs a punch.
Here’s the recipe, kind of, I’m not just a seat of your pants blogger, I’m a no recipe kind of girl too. I’m always making up recipes on the fly, by imagining how the ingredients would taste together.

Chick-a-leekie soup
3 cups chicken broth
1 chicken breast cooked, cut into strips, or cubes, or you could either sauté it before the veggies, or boil it in the broth.
1 leek, washed, thinly sliced
1 potato cut into bite size chunks
1 carrot cut into bite size chunks
1/2 cooking onion
1 inch of fresh ginger, finely grated
2 cloves of fresh garlic
juice of half a fresh lemon, or less to taste
dash or so of cayenne pepper to taste
Sauté veggies, onion, leeks, and garlic in olive oil, or butter until almost tender. Add chicken breast cook one to two minutes to heat. Add to heated chicken broth, stir in grated ginger, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper. Simmer for a few minutes until veggies are tender, and flavours have meshed. Serve hot and prepare to feel toasty.

I wasn’t sure how to approach this. But I knew that I had to put it out there, b ecause we all need to find a little joy in our lives.
And to be grateful.

Especially this time of year.
It will be fun, I’m sure of it.
Especially at this time of year.
The start of the season of celebration.
Of love, joy, and giving.
With the days short bleak, dark, the nights long and cold.
Filled with white clouds that shake snow down from the skies like icing sugar from a sifter.
And because Winter is coming, there are signs of it all around us.
It’s really cold here, everything is frozen solid.
Autumn is gathering up her suitcase, leaving no trace behind.
The colorful leaves she decorated with are all gone now.
The light won’t linger, darkness comes early.
And it makes us wonder.
What will we write about? What will we take photos of?

How will we?
So how about?
Everyday beauty, learning to find joy in the ordinary.
Because.
There are people who can always be counted on to see it a little differently.
Looking beyond, to see what is missed.
All around them.
In everyday objects.
And those people are you.

Let’s create momentum.
Let’s share what we see, what we hear, what we think, what we write.
Describing snowflakes falling from the grey sky.
Outside in the still moment, stopped in time.
Boots lined up at the door.
Warm winter mittens, keeping out the cold.
Cat’s sleeping curled in circles, dog prints in snow deep.
In words, and images our thoughts, what we see.
To find joy, and share it, tell about it, in every day objects.
To talk, to capture our world, how it moves us, what it makes us think.
As sunlight flits across the wall before it disappears for the night.
Describing a beloved bowl on the counter, warm cookies scenting the house, sitting on a plate.
A steaming cup of Chai tea.
The song of a small bird on a bare branch, grateful for it’s dinner.

Let’s find joy in the ordinary, let’s share our finds, promote our posts, and inspire each other.
And still make this as simple as possible.
When you include a image, or words in your blog posts that makes you grateful, joyful, thankful, or inspired, u se the caption: Find Joy In the Ordinary on that part of your post so we can read about it.

• Send me a email me and request a invite to the Pinterest group board called #Find Joy In The Ordinary anyone can join in, you don’t have to be a blogger.
• Use your photos, words, what ever it is that gives you inspiration, things that help you to find joy in ordinary objects.
• Include the hashtag #Find Joy, or #FindJoyInTheOrdinary for your Pinterest pin description, and in your Instagram images so they can be found in the search engines.
• Pin the full post to the board, write a short description explaining what it is that you are inspired by. Don’t forget the hash tags.
• “Like” the Facebook page Find Joy In The Ordinary and post your inspirations.

I’m so looking forward to seeing what we as a village can come up with… there are so many simply beautiful things to appreciate and be grateful for out there… go for it!
Here’s a funny background story about these pomegranates used in my post. My Mom kept bringing them over, one by one, until we ended up with 3.
She thinks they’re attractive, and wanted me to use them as decorations, or as she puts it, “in a photo shoot.”
[What can I say, she’s a fan!]
I was happy that she thought of me, and appreciated her bringing them over, but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat any of them. I could only remember the one that I ate forever years ago… it’s just wasn’t my thing. All that hype about these warty looking red spheres? What’s the big deal, the one I had, was pithy, and bitter, and the seeds outweighed the juice.
After Goggling how to cut open a pomegranate, I rather cautiously cut the top off of one, split it open at the seams, and carefully pulled it back.
Clicked off a couple of shots, and moved it around a bit, a seed fell out, I was hungry, I ate it.
And simply fell in love!
It’s delightful, juicy, tart, and sweet, all at the same time.
So I guess, Moms always do know best, and I think you should give them give them a try if you haven’t already.

Something else you might like to try is new Silk Creamy Cashew. It’s very creamy, thick, and is a great substitute for dairy in baking, and cooking. I loved using it instead of dairy in my Chai tea, it tasted great.
And since it has less calories then skim milk I don’t feel guilty having this treat more often.
You can read my blog post, and more about how I used it here.
You can visit Silk Canada’s Facebook page for great ideas, recipes and more.

Hard to believe that we went from summer breezes last night to arctic air this morning. We are looking our first frost in the eye, and that is a glint of white sparkly stuff that we don’t want to see. What’s your weather like? Frost yet? Yesterday I walked through my garden, mentally saying goodbye, farewell, and thank you for your colorful flowers to each of my annuals, not expecting to see them again the way they look today. It’s not easy to move to the next stage, knowing that they will end up in the compost bin any day. I know it’s inevitable, but it’s sad.

We turned the furnace on today preparing it for winter, it’s been dormant all summer, we wanted to make sure that any dust in the ducts was blown out while we could still open windows. Bootsie is in love with a forced air furnace, he plops himself over the register on the floor, and purrs happily. And when the air stops he looks rather perturbed. Little does he know winter is coming.

I find it’s odd to have to keep the kitchen window closed for warmth when I am cooking, I am so used to that window being open all summer.

The skies I now see have clouds, no more blue for a few days. But still no rain in sight, unless you count the meagre amount we got finally last night. We have had less then a 1/2 centimeter of rain since June, record breaking summer weather… now we could use some rain please.

So I baked, chocolate zucchini muffins, a house that smells of baking is a happy house, a smiling house. And we all need more smiles in our life.

How about you? Loving my warm chocolate scented house…

“Hey Jane, are you up there?” I hear my husbands voice from down in the basement, darn, busted… again. More then likely the sound of the computer chair being dragged over his head on the floor above gave it away. Back to work I go cleaning up the basement with him. Do you sneak in a little blogging throughout the day, when no one is looking?

“Dinner will be a little late, and it might be a bit burnt.” I announce this to Boo our cat, and my husband as they are sitting in their favourite chair watching the evening news. “Blogging again” he asks with smile. The man knows me much too well, and he has heard every reason in the world as to why dinner is: late, burnt, nearly raw, non existent, forgotten, or something quick, and simple.

Blogging is more fun then housework, TV, cooking, or feeding the poor cat. “Hey honey, the cat is starving, can you just… ” He knows that I am in the middle of a post, and don’t want to lose sight of the idea before I get it on the screen.

When inspiration strikes I must go to the computer and translate what’s in my mind, that itchy little voice that speaks to me, even if it is a bad time. So far I have held off blogging in the middle of the night, but that’s only because I would have to get out of bed, and go downstairs, turn on the computer and wait for it to fire up. But then again, I could always keep the laptop by my bed…

Do you sneak in bits and pieces of blogging daily? Do you tiptoe away from others, saying I just have something important to attend to… or are you a all or nothing, this is my only time to blog, don’t you bother me now kind of blogger? Do you steal away to check the comments, read a few other blogs, and maybe leave a comment or two? Of course we are all curious how other people find the time to blog… so share, even if you have to sneak away to do it. Tiptoeing away… Now before I forget, you still have one more day to get your guess in as to who will get snow first, Connie, at Far Side of Fifty, or us. See this link for details. Contest closes at midnight Friday

We all get those moments, when it seems we don’t even have a chance to catch our breath.

Our lives are not supposed

to be like a pie chart, each

moment divided up into

brightly colored sections.

Family, life, blogging, work, watering, housecleaning, cooking, creating. Family, and life, are the ones that I wished got the biggest segment, and mostly they do, but work and watering, oh the watering, it tries to get more, it’s greedy, thirsty, demanding. Keeping things watered has become a massive job, and we are trying to work something out to make it a little easier.

Keeping cool, has become a huge job too, the it’s certainly hot here, all day and all night long. Don’t laugh at my pie chart cookie, it’s all the time I had for photography, and this blog post is late already, and now the cookie is gone, it tasted delish though.

I would like creating new recipes for ice cream cones to be given a larger segment of my pie chart, cuddling with the Boo, and taking more photos of my flowers, and just general creating, oh and watching those magenta sunsets every night with my love. I guess a little bit should go to riding the bike, exercise should consist of more then pulling the hose around.

So what are the small sections that you wish you had more time for on your life pie chart? Or do you manage to give everything in your life just a sliver, some two slivers? Are there sections of your pie chart life that don’t get a section but should? Munching…

If you have a cell phone, you are most likely familiar with the saying… there’s a app for that. Seems that there are apps for almost everything, banking, stock market, cooking, lists, name it and there is a app for that.
And apparently we have just as many bugs up here.
Green bugs, yellow bugs, red bugs, ugly winged brown flying… ugh it’s on me, get it off, get it off, kind of bugs.
I have never seen this many bugs in my life, you name the plant, and if it grows here there are bugs for it.

My beautiful blue leafed willow bush had a weird origami bug that took the leaf and folded, and rolled it into a triangle shaped box, who knew bugs could be that creative.
This is big sky, and big bug country, if you are sitting in a room and hear a loud thunk, it’s usually a huge flying bug buzzing around that’s hit the window. There are bugs that only eat a certain type of leaf, picky eaters that they are, they will chew down the plant to a skeleton and leave a different plant uneaten right next to it.

Aromatic plants are not exempt because of their scent, I was outside, looked down and was horrified to see a ugh… white spider eating the head off of a poor unsuspecting bee. I know it’s a bug eat bug world, but still…
There are buzzing bugs, flying bugs, crawling bugs, sitting bugs that are exactly the same color as the leaf. Bugs that come out at night, and bugs that only are here in the day time. Bugs that bite me while I am at the computer, and bugs that sneak in the front door. There are even bugs that want to bite the Boo.

My irrigation system with it’s micro sprinklers is being bombarded by bugs that crawl into the lines and clog it up each day. Picture me, skirt hiked up, pink gardening clogs stomping my seedlings, trying to reach into the garden bed and yank the sprinkler head off… and then I get sprayed with water, and a bug attacks me, and I run screeching into the house. It bugs me that I have become bug-a-phobic, but bugs bite me and I swell up, so I am leery of them.

Gardening is starting to bug me, but maybe as the summer turns towards the fall, the bugs will buzz off.

Do bugs bug you? Are you once bitten, twice swollen…?

I have the wickedest headache! A terrible one, and its all your fault!! This blogging thing is getting in the way of my life. The problem is I love it! I love hearing from you, all 5 of you blog readers. In fact we should have a celebration when the total of readers jumps to 6 people. But it's keeping me up at night, wide awake at 2 am, writing posts in my head, and planning what I am going to write, and it's not a good thing.
My husband told me"don't let it take over your life". Gee do you think he said that because he has not seen me for days, since I am always at the computer, writing or checking out other blogs, and we never seems to get dinner on time any more. Or maybe he said that because the other night I got up at 2am, and starting to write down ideas for the blog, using the meager illumination of the security lights on our patio. It was so dark I could only see the paper, and not what I had written. I did not want to wake him up, so maybe next time I can get one of those book lights. Last night I realized that what I need is a voice activated recorder. Then I can just mumble whatever profond thoughts come to me between 2am and 4am into the recorder, and play them back in the morning. Who wouldn't want to do this for a living, not that I do, sorry to disappoint you. You get out of bed, and the commute is really short, the computer is right there. People listen to you, and you get to talk to them via email all day. You could take as many breaks as you like, no boss to say"get back to work". Well between my husband, cooking, work, gardening, trying to become a better photographer, and starting my own business, there's not much free time left. And my poor garden is suffering. It needs to be fed, but I just don't have the inclination, Pioneer Woman has a new post and I need to check it out…

Things never go quite as planned, so should we plan for the not quite as planned, and then be pleasantly surprised when it goes the way we wanted it all the time? Or will secretly wanting a different outcome change everything anyways? I have no idea, other then our programmable thermostats, programmable sprinklers, and PSE7 photos are not working correctly here.

This post is late, very late, and I got up early this morning to write it, and try and find the photos of lilacs that I had earmarked for it last night. Late last night… Seems like Photoshop7 is having some sort of snit, and it takes forever to load anything, la de da… and suddenly hours have flown by, and I find myself sleeping on the keyboard, with the imprint of the keys on my cheek, give up and go to bed. Thinking very unwisely that yes, I will get up at 6 am to write the post, and the photos will magically appear in Picassa like they have always done. Hmmmmpppf. Right. Well you know how that ends.

Sleep in till 6:30, stumble exhaustedly down the stairs. Load up the computer hoping against hope that the photos I processed in PSE7 last night are just going to show up, and… they don’t. So you end up seeing photos of the market at Caravan Theatre in Armstrong, from the weekend, because that’s all I can find. During this debacle, the heat comes on after I spent ages programming the thermostat, telling it that it’s cooking out there, and thank you very much we really don’t require any more heat for awhile. But no, it’s determined to heat up the house. Thanks. Look bleary eyed outside to see if the programmable sprinklers did their job, and no… they decided to take the week off. So everything is dry, and needs to be watered by hand.

Todays blog post was not brought to you by PSE7, or any sort of programmable device. See, not quite as planned.

Had any unplanned progress in your life lately?

Garlic, we find it so useful for

many things, pest control, vampires, cooking and garlic bread. Drool… Handy little bulb isn’t it? And, rumour has it that you can’t plant those store bought ooops we forgot about them and now they are sprouting, bulbs. Well call me stubborn but I am going to try and make them grow. I guess I was supposed to plant them by the light of the moon in deep and dark December during the winter solstice… but. I was too busy making garlic bread that night, and besides, my garden was under a coat of the white stuff.

So I did it yesterday, and the Boo helped me. It’s going to be cold enough tonight to pass for winter, going down below zero, that should make them feel like it’s still time to grow.

What have I got to lose? It’s already sprouted, it’s garlic… we’ll get really hot weather here months from now, let’s see if it grows. I’ll let you know…

Remember the Baking soda experiment, from last summer, I know, neither did I… but apparently it’s a very popular post. There are many pins on Pinterest that tell you to sprinkle baking soda on gravel paths, and weedy spots, and they swear it works. It just didn’t work for me… simple as that.

And I so wanted it to work, but maybe our soil is too acidic with the trees, and the mountains. There are other bloggers that used baking soda to keep the weeds down, but where ever I spread it, the weeds grew even bigger. Go figure…

Did it work for you? And does my breath smell of garlic? I need to go and find some parsley. Did you know how to get the garlic smell off of your hands? Wet them down, and rub something made of stainless steel, like your sink on them. Well, rub your hands on the sink, not the other way around.or you could use a spoon, it really works, unlike the baking soda.

ref·use/riˈfyo͞oz/

Well how did you do? Did you reduce your food wastage? I know that I made a real effort, and almost nothing went into the landfill, I consciously decided not to buy as much when I was shopping. That’s a tough one for me, since I am all about the “what if’s.”

Now I need to rethink our portion sizes when I am cooking. It’s not always economical, or feasible to make that extra portion for later if it doesn’t get eaten.

On a different note, that Gnome, I think I can’t bear to throw it out, and hurt it’s Gnomie feelings, but I am going to put it at the end of the driveway.

There are lots of walkers around here, and maybe someone will give it a new home.

Or maybe I will wrap it up and give it to my Sister for her birthday. Wicked laugh… she reads my blog, so now she will know what that lumpy present might be.

I am seeing some wonderful new sprouts in the garden, there might be a few bulbs, daylilies, and iris coming soon.
We also have a new paper delivery girl, and if I can get her not to walk through my beds, the flowers might get a chance to bloom.