two months in - an action plan

In the last post, I gave myself a 3.6 out of 10 on the scale of work-life balance. Which, I say again, is pretty abysmal. I committed to developing an action plan so that my precious few non-work hours didn't slip away from me.  Well, my friends, the time has come to commit to that action plan publicly, in front of you.  This is mostly for my own self, to hold me accountable, but if anyone has suggestions, they would be appreciated in the comments!

Also, sorry about the lack of pictures, but this post is very serious.  Also I only had a short amount of time to work on it.

1. Gardening. Just so you know, the lawn is no longer a foot tall.  I mean, it's a good 8 inches again, but not a foot, and it's been raining all week.  Kathy and I have decided a good way to handle this is that one day a week, when I can get out on time, I'll mow while she cooks dinner.  Usually one of us cooks and the other bops around the kitchen chatting, so this is a small sacrifice of some family time together, but we make a point of sitting down as a family for dinner each night, so we will have to catch up then.  Also, C has baseball games each Saturday morning, so when it's our weekend with the kids, I'll stay home while the rest of the crew goes to the baseball game, so I can do the other gardening -- weeding, mulching, planting, etc.  I bought a flat of annuals for some fun color and we actually have an enormous amount of mulch left over from last year stashed in various places, so I am all ready for the implementation phase.  Two hours every other weekend is not as much time as I would like in my garden, but it's a heck of a lot better than nothing.

And Kathy has promised to help me plant Stewart.

stewartia

Yesterday was a grey day.  I did not get any sleep the night before, so I was tired.  The lady at the store where we were registering for our wedding gifts was rude.  We had to go to Ikea in New Jersey in under 3 hours.  My mom told me that my grandparents weren't going to come to my (gay) wedding.  It misty-rained all day long, just enough to make my feet wet on the way home from work.  All this was a recipe for sad.

After Ikea, I came home mopey and reticent.  Then Kathy noticed the box on the front porch, which had apparently been delivered sometime after 6:30 when we had left for Ikea.  It was tall and skinny.  I knew in an instant what was inside.  My stewartia pseudocamillia.  Which I have been boring my family by talking about since last summer.  I wanted it last summer.  I ordered it last fall.  And I have been waiting ever since. 

It's funny how magical delayed gratification can make something, and how a little tree can turn a grey day around.

(my very own stewartia, basking in the morning sun in its future home)

my investment portfolio, which can survive any crash

From the time I was 18 until I turned 28, I had 13 different addresses.  Finally, I have just the one, which I intend to keep for the foreseeable future. 

When I signed the two-year lease for our Fire Island house shack, which just expired, I smiled at Kathy and noted that it was the longest I had "lived" in one place, since moving out of my parents' house at 18.  Now I live here with Kathy and the kids, in a house she owns (until we redo the title, at which point I will also own it, hooray!).  Home ownership, combined with the joy I have found in trying not to kill plants in our garden, has given me the lovely gift of a feeling of permanence, in a good way.  I always thought such permanence would feel like being tied down.  Imagine my surprise that it, instead, feels like being set free.  Free to plan, free to make changes, free to hang on to the things that are working, while discarding the things that aren't.

(a fading hydrangea that's mine, year after year)

Yesterday afternoon, I bought heads of garlic online to bust apart and plant the largest cloves, in the hopes that each one will grow into a full head next summer -- if I don't kill them. It has gotten me thinking about all of the little investments I have made, knowing that I'm not going anywhere. Like any good portfolio, some are short-term investments (expecting payoffs in the spring or summer of next year) and some are long-term investments (which could take many years to mature):

you can't hurry love

All summer, I have been lamenting my pitifully performing vegetable gardens.  Today, for the first time since our return from "vacation," (the quotes will be explained in a subsequent post!) I investigated what was going on with the green beans.  These lovely, forgiving plants had, in our absence, produced an enormous crop of green beans.  They are a bit over-mature since we were gone for so long, which probably means I will have to cook the heck out of them, but I don't care.  Because finally, FINALLY, I grew something which we can eat.

Incidentally, all four of the tomato plants have tons of flowers and unripe fruit.  So it turns out that I was lamenting all my non-producing vegetables, when really I just didn't wait long enough.  Next year, I'll plant a week or two earlier, and also be sure to include some early-producing vegetables (peas, I think?) so that I can enjoy those instead of obsessing over what isn't happening.

immature

Early this summer, one of my next door neighbors called to me from her deck when I was out working in the yard.  She pointed out a dead tree in the garden that separated our two back yards, and asked whether Kathy and I would be willing to split the cost of replacing the dead tree with her.  Of course, I said yes.  We left it at that, which left me to contemplate what kind of tree to put in the dead tree's place.  Which left me dreaming of stewartia pseudocamellia.

(this photo from awaytogarden.com)

Look at it, with it's mid-summer blooms, big beautiful buds, gorgeous peeling bark, and bright fall foliage.  It's so much more interesting that the same 5 things you can get from the local Home Depot.  So it seemed to me that convincing the neighbor that this tree was the way to go would be easy, right?  Nonetheless, I was nervous about the confrontation.  Finally, after weeks of agonizing over it, A said to me, "Well really, Erin.  It's not like she can say no."  She had a point.  If I went over there and made a pitch for a particular tree I wanted, and offered to be the one to put it in, it's not like she could say no, could she?

dead things, mikey, dead things

Not the kind of dead things that these guys found:

(The Goonies)

But instead, the kind that are all around my yard.  While I have been enjoying myself on the beach on Fire Island, or at least sitting in the office studying for the GRE, summer has arrived.  With summer, comes heat, and with heat, comes dead flowers.  All those pretty spring blooms on my flowering shrubs have been replaced by this stuff:

As a result, just as it heats up into the eighties, I have to dead head and make a date with the hedge trimmers.  I tried to ignore this chore, until I was reminded by A Way to Garden that if you wait too long to prune, you risk ruining next years blooms, as the buds will already have formed.

Raising the Bed

Yesterday was Earth Day.  Not that I need an excuse to work in my garden lately, but I take what I can get.  I am such a novice when it comes to all things garden-related, but can't believe how much I've been loving being out there and getting my hands dirty.

Since it rained yesterday, and I was in the city yesterday anyway, I tackled my Earth Day project today.  This year, I'm really committed to getting more than one lousy tomato out of my vegetable garden.  In my book, that starts with leveling the garden so that all my seeds don't wash downhill this year after the first good rain. 

For perspective, this is what our vegetable garden looked like today before I got started.  That is not garbage in it, for the record, it's cardboard and wet newsprint, which I was using to smother the weeds before planting time, a tip I learned on Margaret Roach's gardening blog, A Way to Garden. 

Incidentally, those are also my supplies all piled up around the vegetable patch.  I found the 2x10 (which is 10 feet long - exactly the length of the existing vegetable patch, as it turns out) under the deck, which is what inspired this project in the first place.  I went to the Home Depot and picked up another 10 foot 2x10 and and eight foot 2x10, which they nicely cut in half for me.  Those two pieces of wood plus a box of nails was around $20.  I spent about another $10 or so on dirt, but I would have had to buy that anyway, whether I raised the bed or not, so I don't have to count it, right?

much mulch

It all started with this:

Our firepit.  We built it ourselves, last weekend, in the back yard.  I took a bunch of process pictures for a how-to post.  We'll see if I get around to posting it.  Anyway.  This is what happened next...

Kathy:  We need to order wood for the firepit.
Me:  Okay.  I'll call the tree company.  I'm also going to see about getting some mulch.
Kathy:  Okay but not too much.  Budget budget blah blah blah... (okay, so maybe that's only what I heard)
Me:  Yup.  Got it.

...

Me: How about mulch, how much is that?
Tree company guy (named Ed):  Well, it's $20 per yard.
Me:  Cubic yard?
Ed:  Yes, cubic yard.  And it's a 5 yard minimum.
Me:  I think that will be enough, but I'm not sure.
Ed:  Don't worry, if it's not, we can send you more. 
Me:  Okay, well, I'm not supposed to get too much anyway, so yes, let's go with five.
Ed:  We'll drop it off tomorrow morning.

...

Kathy:  Wait, what??  You spend $100 on mulch? 
Me:  Yes, that was the minimum.  And it's so much cheaper than buying it in bags.  [Rationalizations, rationalizations].
Kathy:  Ugh.

...

springing

For about 2 months, I have been so jealous of other bloggers' posts about spring's arrival.  Finally, FINALLY, I feel like it is here in our zone.

Today, I spent the day working in my garden, and, while struggling with a particularly strong taproot, remembered the first piece of gardening advice I ever received.  When I was about five years old, I asked my mother, "Mama, how do you tell if it's a weed or a plant?"  Now, I realize that weeds are actually plants as well, but she knew what I meant.  She responded, "Sweetie, if it comes out easy, it's a plant; if it comes out hard, it's a weed."  This leads me to believe that some of the stuff I was ripping out of my garden were "plants," rather than weeds.  Oops.

And now, without further ado, Spring, in our gardens, so far...

vernal equinox

(B, holding our spinach seeds in the sunshine)

I've been so jealous of all the spring photos posted by other bloggers over the last couple of weeks.  Last week we saw the first signs that spring is really on the way.  We had warm, sunny weather.  I spent Saturday cleaning all the autumn out of our flower beds.  I was delighted to discover that the daffodils and tulips were actually a good way up once I cleared the dead leaves away.  We spent most of the day outside.

Then, yesterday, on the first official day of Spring, I planted spinach with B and C, hoping it can withstand any remaining chilly weather of the season. 

Today, it snowed the whole way into work, and actually started accumulating out in the suburbs.  I really must learn to start respecting the weatherman.

spring is in the air

Today is March 1, which means that we are officially in the month when Spring begins.  Which means we are officially in the month I start working on the garden.  Last year, I had a lot of good intentions, but struggled to actually do much more than mow the lawn and throw in some wood chips and random flowering plants I picked up while at Home Depot for other projects.  This year, not so. 

The first step toward having a lovely garden is to plan it, not just buy random flowering plants at Home Depot and throw them in (although in my view, that is better than nothing).  I've lived at my house through 1 1/2 summers (i.e., one summer full time, one summer half-time) so I have learned a few things about the yard.  That helps.  However, there is still a lot I don't know.  We didn't do the existing landscaping, so there are several plants that I have no idea what they are (either because I can't remember at the moment or because I have never seen them before).  But I like them.  That is why they are referred to below as "nice plants" or just "bushes."  I'm not that experinced of a gardener, actually.  Anyhow, here is what our yard currently looks like, to me:

My dad would kill me if he saw this freehand, not-to-scale map drawn on typing paper.  But it will serve my purposes for now!  And anyway, it's kind of accurate.  This is what our house and yard look like to google maps (although upside-down compared to my map):