HJ Waxing Moon

See that? That would be Mr. Moon taking his blind date to the prom. Apparently. Anyway, when this plant started growing, we thought it was a thistle. It got so tall, growing there in the drainage flow of the compost pile, and we were so excited to see how big the thistle flower would be on a stalk that is 1.5 inches in diameter, and then suddenly--YELLOW! [Get it? Blind date, because it was an unidentified plant and he's wearing a silly tuxedo shirt? Yeah, I find myself funny, it's ok, you don't have to laugh. As long as Mr. Moon does. It's required for him to laugh at my jokes.] Our friend growing next to the compost pile was apparently not a thistle, so I took this picture and posted it on my Facebook soliciting advice. My mother-in-law (except not really because she's my sister-in-law's mom but whatevs) piped up right away to tell me it is apparently called Prickly Lettuce , but that it is in fact not edible. Also very invasive, so we needed to get tho...

When I was a kid, I did a science experiment about growing plants. What I found is that you can take away dirt and light, but plants need water to survive. Simple, right? Not so much. 20 years later, my parents still have that hanging basket of ivy plants that we stuck together after the experiment was over. Even now, you can still tell which plants spent their time lacking soil, or light, or worse yet both. They are a little smaller, a little spindlier, a little yellower. The leaves are closer together on the one that was lacking both light and dirt. After I posted about my scallions going slimy and shooting off their root bits, I was ruminating about that experiment. I owe a thank you to so many people for helping me learn as much about science as I have--and especially teaching me HOW to learn about science--but my mom is the one who stands out the most. We haven't always been on the same page, but she was awesome at helping to talk me through figuring out doing experiments wi...

Last week didn't get posted because by the time I remembered about it on Wednesday, we had already completely re-arranged everything and skipped a lot of stuff. This week is sort of a "back to basics" week, trying to get back on track with planning and execution. As you may recall, lunches are sort of suggestions. Ironically I think I stuck to my lunch plan last week better than the dinner plans. In any event! 

 * Fruit Salad: I love this because it's a product of looking to see what's on sale and in-season this week, finding lots of produce that's great for salad, and taking advantage. Seasonal eating at its best. On top of that, making a little extra means we can use it for lunch sides the rest of the week. * Brats: Of course, who can resist a cook-out on Memorial Day? I was once at a Memorial Day celebration where a recently-returned soldier who had been serving in Iraq was asked how he felt about the holiday becoming synonymous with the first real...

Once upon a time, I had no money skills. I spent all my time scraping by, and any time I seemed to get ahead it just got flushed down the toilet. Car repairs. Unexpected school supplies. Medical bills. Thieving roommates. You know the drill. I started getting control of my finances while I was working on a $7,000/year income and still covering half of the bills with a $3,000 credit card debt that I was trying to pay off. The tipping point for me was seeing a snippet of Suze Orman's show talking about managing your money, and it got me looking for more information. I stumbled upon Get Rich Slowly. Along the way, I've read a bunch of personal finance blogs. Books just never quite make sense to me, but blogs are typically written in a much more conversational tone, one where I can give instant feedback through comments--even if I don't, it's still a conversation to me. It helps me process the information better. But through the years I've noticed a lot of personal...

As you may recall, I've been growing scallions in a vase in my kitchen. A few times, I've had to take a couple minutes and clean out the vase, soaking the rocks in vinegar water, and pulling soggy outer layers of onions off the stalks. I could probably avoid doing this as often if I remembered to change the water more frequently... Then one day I went to clean out the vase and found this: A bunch of these little root structures looking like they'd broken off the bottom of the stalks, but when I sorted through, each stalk still had roots at the bottom! Though you may be able to see here, some stalks had brighter-white, new roots. Exactly as many had new roots as I had stalk-less root structures, in fact. I have no idea what this means. But the experiment continues!

This is what our Nook looked like, upon us moving in. I'd like to say that Mr. Moon and I made a mess of it all moving in, but the truth is it looked worse than this before we cleaned it up and then made a mess again, and half of this isn't even ours. Let's review what we're seeing here, shall we? To the left is a pile of boxes full of towels needing put away, and almost-unpictured is a stack of small appliances for the shelves that were built under the lip of the lunch counter. Behind the red curtain is a mess of canned goods needing sorting, though by the time we took this picture the dry goods had been put away in the sewing cupboard next to it. You can also see the drawers of Mum's yarn, tucked away back in the corner where she couldn't get to them because of the kitchen table that was just a catch-all for all manner of everything. We had brought in the recycling bins already, because the floor had been just a pile of recycling waiting to be picked up...

So... you know how we spent 6 hours on Tuesday cleaning the carpets? And you know how I said that water stain came right up? Yeah... I should have waited until it dried. The edges of the stain are not as exact, but that would be because the entire carpet is brown now. Now so brown that you can even see it in pictures, I tried. Possibly not even so brown that the Old People eyes will even notice. But it's brown! Just like that plain water stain was! My favorite part? The section that is worst is actually the one with plain water and vinegar, but the spots where I used soap are a bit better. Why is this my favorite part? Oh, that would be because when I called the professional carpet cleaning company to ask them why plain water turned my carpet brown, they said it's because I used soap in the carpet cleaner. Uhmm.... No. Plain water turned the carpet brown first, hence the needing to clean it to begin with. After I had one person tell me that the only thing that touched the...