Work has been crazy lately, actually life has been crazy.
Oh, and apparently I owe $14 in overdue library fines for several books including: "How to Stretch your Dollar", "Nice girls don't get Rich" and various other investing/budgeting books. Major FAIL.
Because I won't be working on my garden until this weekend, here are some favorite songs:
When I first heard Expecting To Fly by Buffalo Springfield, I thought it was a new(er) song- but nope! It's a classic.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
My Bonsai Sunflower
I still haven't finished my big project. I'm estimating I'll be done later this week.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Things to come...
I'm super tired and need all the rest I can get for work tomorrow, so I'll give you a little sneak peak of what's going on:
My squashes are getting either burnt or need more room. Sooo.....
Here is a little sneak peak of what I'm making for them!
My squashes are getting either burnt or need more room. Sooo.....
Here is a little sneak peak of what I'm making for them!
To be continued...
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Living off the Grid
Are there ever times when you feel completely overwhelmed by all of your expenses? Do you ever feel like just getting away from it all or that you could escape and get away from the tedious cycle of day to day living in this modern world? Sometimes I feel that way. And now, more than ever, I feel compelled to leave my present life and begin that new chapter that calls to me. That of "living off the grid."
When you Google the term "living off the grid," it brings you to this website where they discuss the meaning of the term. To most people, this term means to make your own energy and live off of the electric grid that provides power to the majority of people living around you if not to yourself as well. To others, it means to make your own clothing, shelter, heating your house with wood and lighting it with oil. The author goes on to state:
After reading many of the replies posted in response, I realized I was one of the few people to consider this close to my own definition of living off the grid. I do need a job, I'd rather not pay as many taxes as I do, sometimes I like society and sometimes I don't, and I'd prefer to not be tracked by certain means. More often as I'm caught up in how much it requires to live in our society, I find myself wishing I lived in a chalet in the middle of a huge forest, maybe somewhere in Wyoming or Canada.
What I want to do to live off the grid is to pay off all of my debt, which includes school, credit card, and personal debt, and start paying cash only for things I buy at the store. In this modern age many of us pay for everything by electronic means and you start to lose your concept of what money really is. It's so much easier now to think of money as something that comes out of thin air, just a number that magically comes out of a piece of plastic or by the click of your mouse. I think that if I have paper money in my hand, I'll probably be able to curb my bad habits better.
I'm really tired of spending money almost every day. It feels like I constantly have to go to the grocery store, gas up, buy supplies for classes, gifts, etc. I've done the math and my phone bill alone amounts to around 720 dollars a year! Speaking of cell phones, sometimes I really want to go back to having a landline, mostly because they are cheaper and much clearer. But alas, I wouldn’t have the ability to text which is now a major form of communication between me and friends/acquaintances. I refused to get a cell phone until around 2007 when I moved to nyc. I was pretty happy without one but now that I'm on my own then it's probably best to keep it for emergency situations alone. But it's SO expensive!
Anyway I'm not sure how to end this post....I guess I should just say that I'm a little tired of money!
When you Google the term "living off the grid," it brings you to this website where they discuss the meaning of the term. To most people, this term means to make your own energy and live off of the electric grid that provides power to the majority of people living around you if not to yourself as well. To others, it means to make your own clothing, shelter, heating your house with wood and lighting it with oil. The author goes on to state:
But there is yet another definition to living off the grid:
Being a ghost to the government. Living under the radar. Staying on the move. Being as free as free can get in today’s society. Dropping out of society. No taxes. No Job. Minding your own business and expecting the rest of the world to do the same.
After reading many of the replies posted in response, I realized I was one of the few people to consider this close to my own definition of living off the grid. I do need a job, I'd rather not pay as many taxes as I do, sometimes I like society and sometimes I don't, and I'd prefer to not be tracked by certain means. More often as I'm caught up in how much it requires to live in our society, I find myself wishing I lived in a chalet in the middle of a huge forest, maybe somewhere in Wyoming or Canada.
Just look at that picture! Imagine cozying up inside on a winters day, completely unbothered by the rest of the world. But I've digressed, because this post isn't about escapism.
What I want to do to live off the grid is to pay off all of my debt, which includes school, credit card, and personal debt, and start paying cash only for things I buy at the store. In this modern age many of us pay for everything by electronic means and you start to lose your concept of what money really is. It's so much easier now to think of money as something that comes out of thin air, just a number that magically comes out of a piece of plastic or by the click of your mouse. I think that if I have paper money in my hand, I'll probably be able to curb my bad habits better.
I'm really tired of spending money almost every day. It feels like I constantly have to go to the grocery store, gas up, buy supplies for classes, gifts, etc. I've done the math and my phone bill alone amounts to around 720 dollars a year! Speaking of cell phones, sometimes I really want to go back to having a landline, mostly because they are cheaper and much clearer. But alas, I wouldn’t have the ability to text which is now a major form of communication between me and friends/acquaintances. I refused to get a cell phone until around 2007 when I moved to nyc. I was pretty happy without one but now that I'm on my own then it's probably best to keep it for emergency situations alone. But it's SO expensive!
Anyway I'm not sure how to end this post....I guess I should just say that I'm a little tired of money!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
DRAMA in the garden!!
Yes folks, there is drama in the garden! But first, I must apologize for not posting because I was really busy with work, and then I became miserably ill with a cold. I've also been busy with so many places to go and things to do. I'm seriously wondering if I'm busier here than I was when I was living in NYC. It might be true.
Some of my plants have died, are dying or are suffering. Here are the problems:
1. Our backyard hose busted. It was really old and worn out by the scorching sun and split when we started using a nozzle. I guess it couldn't take the water pressure. So I had to hand water everything until our landlady brought over a new one, and hand watered my lettuce which probably ended up displacing the seeds.
2. Aphid infestation! I looked closely at my potted flowers and noticed aphids going to town on my English daisies. I went and bought a bottle of poison and killed them, however I'm sure I probably killed a few honeybees as well. =( Not good. I found aphids on my little squash and killed them and tried spraying it with soapy water, but I think either the soapy water killed my squash or the aphids did, I don’t know- Either way, both of my squashes have died. It might also have been some kind of fungus that killed them.
3. The pots that I have my flowers in have started to split. They are recycled plastic pots and I don't know if all the rainwater we had made them split or what, but I'm very upset that they are cracking so I'll never buy any kind of recycled pot again, even if they are on sale for two dollars each!
4. My lettuce has never surfaced and as I stated before, my two squashes have perished.
5. There is something wrong with one of my tomatoes now too. Some of its leaves have become limp and yellow. I talked to my mom about this and she said that either I'm not watering it enough or I am watering it too much. I don't think I've ever watered it too much, so on Sunday I watered all of my tomatoes thoroughly, and I placed them all out into direct sunlight. Now my other two in plastic pots have now gotten droopy, so maybe I've overwatered those too!? This is crazy!
Here's a rundown of how each of my plants are doing:
Tomatoes: As I said before, one tomato was droopy and now that I gave them a ton of water, my two other ones are droopy as well. Also yesterday we were having high winds and so I immediately went out and bought wire cages to support them. (I'd have to buy them eventually.) I'm having trouble recognizing how much water I should be giving them and how often. I'm used to growing things that don't need to be watered often and now I'm relearning everything about taking care of plants. One guy on the internet said he waters his tomatoes in buckets everyday because they dry out quickly. I checked them today and the soil feels quite damp so I don’t want to touch them. I wish I had some kind of gage to tell me when to water them.
All in all, I've noticed that my tomatoes are growing, which obviously is good. They are much larger than when I first potted them a few weeks ago, so something must be working! I just hope that I don't lose them to anything. I haven’t noticed any aphids on them, which is great. I've also noticed that my tomato in the clay pot has done well and has shown no signs of under/overwatering or anything else. My two tomato seedlings in the small terracotta pot are doing well also, which makes me wonder if going terracotta/clay is the way to go. I suspect that the terracotta keeps the moisture more even than plastic does. The next time I plant a container garden I guess I'll save my money and go for the terracotta! Even though it's harder to move them around because they are heavier.
I don't know how I'm going to transplant my two tomato seedlings. Should I keep them together, or try to separate them?
Squashes/Zucchini: My little seedlings have perished, due to some kind of blight, aphids or by my own hand. I feel bad, but that's when it becomes LOWE'S time. I picked up two more zucchini plants that are much farther along than my little ones were, and they appear to be healthy. I haven't repotted them yet, since my mom said that they can stand to be in their pots for a while.
Lettuce: Never materialized. The heavy rains we had probably killed them along with me trying to water them by hand. I think it's too warm to try and plant them now. Maybe at the end of this year...
Potted Flowers: Some died from heavy rains and as I said before, their pots are starting to split. They look a little more old and scraggly now, but very worth what I paid for them!
Sunflowers: My sunflowers have given me hardly any issues whatsoever. It looks like some kind of insect ate some parts of the leaves, but it didn't do much damage. My main task now is to decide where and possibly how to plant them. Since there used to be a pool in our backyard, the ground is very rocky and shallow and I'm not sure how far down I'll be able to dig.
Some of my plants have died, are dying or are suffering. Here are the problems:
1. Our backyard hose busted. It was really old and worn out by the scorching sun and split when we started using a nozzle. I guess it couldn't take the water pressure. So I had to hand water everything until our landlady brought over a new one, and hand watered my lettuce which probably ended up displacing the seeds.
2. Aphid infestation! I looked closely at my potted flowers and noticed aphids going to town on my English daisies. I went and bought a bottle of poison and killed them, however I'm sure I probably killed a few honeybees as well. =( Not good. I found aphids on my little squash and killed them and tried spraying it with soapy water, but I think either the soapy water killed my squash or the aphids did, I don’t know- Either way, both of my squashes have died. It might also have been some kind of fungus that killed them.
4. My lettuce has never surfaced and as I stated before, my two squashes have perished.
5. There is something wrong with one of my tomatoes now too. Some of its leaves have become limp and yellow. I talked to my mom about this and she said that either I'm not watering it enough or I am watering it too much. I don't think I've ever watered it too much, so on Sunday I watered all of my tomatoes thoroughly, and I placed them all out into direct sunlight. Now my other two in plastic pots have now gotten droopy, so maybe I've overwatered those too!? This is crazy!
 |
| What is?!? |
Here's a rundown of how each of my plants are doing:
Tomatoes: As I said before, one tomato was droopy and now that I gave them a ton of water, my two other ones are droopy as well. Also yesterday we were having high winds and so I immediately went out and bought wire cages to support them. (I'd have to buy them eventually.) I'm having trouble recognizing how much water I should be giving them and how often. I'm used to growing things that don't need to be watered often and now I'm relearning everything about taking care of plants. One guy on the internet said he waters his tomatoes in buckets everyday because they dry out quickly. I checked them today and the soil feels quite damp so I don’t want to touch them. I wish I had some kind of gage to tell me when to water them.
All in all, I've noticed that my tomatoes are growing, which obviously is good. They are much larger than when I first potted them a few weeks ago, so something must be working! I just hope that I don't lose them to anything. I haven’t noticed any aphids on them, which is great. I've also noticed that my tomato in the clay pot has done well and has shown no signs of under/overwatering or anything else. My two tomato seedlings in the small terracotta pot are doing well also, which makes me wonder if going terracotta/clay is the way to go. I suspect that the terracotta keeps the moisture more even than plastic does. The next time I plant a container garden I guess I'll save my money and go for the terracotta! Even though it's harder to move them around because they are heavier.
I don't know how I'm going to transplant my two tomato seedlings. Should I keep them together, or try to separate them?
Squashes/Zucchini: My little seedlings have perished, due to some kind of blight, aphids or by my own hand. I feel bad, but that's when it becomes LOWE'S time. I picked up two more zucchini plants that are much farther along than my little ones were, and they appear to be healthy. I haven't repotted them yet, since my mom said that they can stand to be in their pots for a while.
 |
| Just a few beaten up leaves- the rest looks great! |
Lettuce: Never materialized. The heavy rains we had probably killed them along with me trying to water them by hand. I think it's too warm to try and plant them now. Maybe at the end of this year...
Potted Flowers: Some died from heavy rains and as I said before, their pots are starting to split. They look a little more old and scraggly now, but very worth what I paid for them!
Sunflowers: My sunflowers have given me hardly any issues whatsoever. It looks like some kind of insect ate some parts of the leaves, but it didn't do much damage. My main task now is to decide where and possibly how to plant them. Since there used to be a pool in our backyard, the ground is very rocky and shallow and I'm not sure how far down I'll be able to dig.
All of this makes me wish that I had my own house and yard because then I could make a raised garden bed, and do pretty much anything I want without having to wonder if I would have approval or not. Also I would know that my situation is much more permanent than it is now. If I had to move right now, I wouldn't be able to take everything and it would be a lot of money down the drain. I've yet to meet anyone else here my age range who is interested in gardening as well.
Because this is how I do.
Of course there is only one way for me to weed the backyard: with ballet flats and a shovel.
  |
| A job well done. |
And a lovely Arizona sunset for you:
And a lovely Arizona sunset for you:
Can I also reiterate how much of a pain it is to properly align photos on here? This post alone took me ten minutes of dragging pictures around to get them even close to where I wanted. Such a pain.
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