HJ Waxing Moon

I know I promised a garden update ages ago. I even took pictures! On June 22. Let's see what we have here... Yes, let's start with an epic fail. I have no idea what was supposed to be in this planter. Badly cropped in the original photo, you can see a scrap of the plastic wrap I put over these to try to get some greenhouse effect on my seeds. Fabulous! All nice and warm and cozy inside there. Problem is, there were apparently no drainage holes in these herb planters. Oops. So no drainage + no ability to evaporate + a gap for watering that allowed the rain in = SWAMP BUCKET! We since took a drill to the bottoms of these buckets and added a few drainage holes. Having mud fling out at you from the drill bit? Not as delicious as one might expect. Actually it probably is, if you expect it to be kind of gross. So here in this little failure, you can see again the swampiness, the label that is half washed off from the condensation of the greenhouse canopy, AND the scraggl...

I made it 14 days which is admittedly the longest I've ever made on these kinds of challenges. I'd love to say there were lame excuses like the ones Nony blogged about all month for why I fell off the face of the planet and didn't post my menu plan or any of my dinners for two to three weeks. Really I was struggling with a major bout of depression, the weather changes plays havoc on my joints, and I had doctor's appointments two to three times a week for the whole month. Whew! For once I'm not beating myself up about having made a goal and failing at it. There were days I COULD have taken a picture of my dinner and posted it, but I decided that I needed to be gentle on myself, give myself some time and space to just be in the moment, to accept the situation. It was oddly clarifying. Mr. Moon and I took a trip to Seattle for Halloween to see some friends. We'd been squirreling away our date-night money for a few months in anticipation of this trip, and we mana...

Do you remember how excited I was to set Laundry Day as a leisurely, TV-time activity? How we were going to PAUSE and switch laundry and FOLD while we WATCHED? Do you remember in that post how we were getting into a nice routine with chores (do we call these daily or weekly?) on a schedule? Let me tell you a little story about this pile of clothes... while Mr. Moon vacuums the carpets two days late. So, the basket in front is a pile of clean laundry that needs to be folded and put away. Behind it is a box of candle/decor stuff that I needed out because I'm running out of candles and we need the scrap wax bucket to make fire starters. On top of that box is a trash bag of clothes that no longer fit and need to be put into storage for the time being (until we even determine what's wrong with me, I'm not willing to give up perfectly good clothes that I might fit back into soon--but there is a date with a donation center next year if no progress has been made). Behind THA...

Pops had a military reunion this weekend, and Thursday night we had about 20 people over for a spaghetti dinner. I figured as long as I was making spaghetti sauce from scratch, I might as well make a nice big batch and freeze what we didn't need for the dinner. I managed to resist the idea of cooking the sauce overnight. Last time I cooked my sauce too long it got very bitter. So, we roasted the veggies up the night before and puréed with some of the tomato so all I had to do was throw it and some seasonings in the crockpot the next day. Simple! Nonetheless, about 2 hours before our guests arrived, I realized the sauce was VERY acidic. I knew that a lot of people used sugar to cut the acidity of the sauce. A tablespoon of sweet in this entire batch of sauce would probably have been fine, if I had realized that's all I needed. Still, the gut reaction of NO NO NO from my low-carb days persisted, and I decided I'd find another way.  I knew I could use baking soda to el...

The 'Rents just got the roof replaced on their house. Mr. Moon and I weren't terribly involved in the process, so not a lot learned there (besides the necessity of reading the contracts in full before purchasing, which frankly isn't a mistake I would have made--not reading them being the mistake, that is). But one thing I did learn is this: The garden needs to be covered. Yeah, you know that nice vegetable garden I've been taking such pains to keep free of non-edible substances? It's now covered in shingle grains. They put down tarps to collect the shingles as they threw them off the roof, but they didn't put them down to protect the gardens, and then promptly threw a bunch of shingles into the gardens, missing their tarps entirely. The flowers, fine, whatever, but MY FOOD, PEOPLE!!! Lesson learned. Sunk cost. Moving on. :(

You know how I've been talking for ages about wanting to make CrockPot Breakfast Oatmeal? Yeah, so that happened. Besides the fact that I'm disappointed in the recipe, I discovered something about myself: I am REALLY not drawn to sweet foods in the morning. I have known for ages that if I only get starchy goodness first thing, I'm a bear to live with all day. This "revelation" should be no surprise to me but it somehow is. The long and the short of it is, I need PROTEIN to get through until lunch, and I want it to be savory. I do know that rice and beans works great in the crockpot, and it is something that I'll scoop into a bowl and throw a couple of eggs on top for something a bit more substantial than the eggs-and-toast rut we've been in lately. Something else I'm noticing is that I don't mind cooking food from scratch, but when I do manage to get hungry and am ready to eat, I need the food ready OMG!RIGHT-NOW. I'm more ...

Mr. Moon realized the other day that we never got After pictures up about the landscaping he did in the side yard. When we moved in, the butterfly bushes were 5 feet into the neighbor's yard, who was being understanding and ever-so polite about asking when we might get to that project now that we've moved in? Did you need a nice little reminder of what that looked like before? This is from April 16: Yeah, we took those back quite a ways... These are from only a week later, April 23. Including, as you can see (left), taking out an entire BUSH. It had been growing at an odd angle away from the house, and didn't seem very happy there in general. So, out it came. My favorite part is that we saved all the strong branches for using as stakes for other plants. Already they are holding up rose bushes and being used as the bottom rung of the trellis for my nasturtiums. Mr. Moon is especially proud of the back-breaking work he did taking out the stump of the butterfly ...

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...

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...

Living in a house with four people is difficult enough when everyone cooks for themselves. Mr. Moon likes to HELP with the cooking, but prefers to be given direction and instructions rather than be given the title of an end-product and let loose. Mum is learning new things to cook all the time and is limited in her mobility. When we all originally discussed Mr. Moon and I moving here, I agreed to take responsibility for most of the cooking and meal planning and grocery shopping. Pops has no desire to participate in any of it, really, though we can send him grocery shopping and only expect a 10% variance from the list. But beyond the physical and emotional is the medical. Cancer diet for hormone-related cancers recommends a low-hormone diet. This means that Pops needs to be cutting out, in order of importance: Red meat; fowl; dairy; fish; all animal products altogether (honey is OK). Best advice is to go vegan, but he's a cheese addict and has no desire to limit his enjoyment or u...

Mum planted butterfly bushes along one side of the house, but they haven't been properly maintained and pruned for about 4 years. Having joint surgery will do that to you. Well, these bushes got a little... out of control. One was so weighed down that it's pointing completely away from the house, and needs to be removed. All of them were overhanging the fence and at least 2-3 feet into the neighbors' yard. As kind and understanding as they have been, I know the president of the housing association would have liked for her neighbors to be taking care of their yard a bit better. They've very politely expressed how excited they are that we have moved in to help out, and how they don't envy us this job of cutting back the bushes. Hint received. As you can imagine, with a gate that won't even open due to tree roots pushing up the path stones, we have some work cut out for us. Well, after much stalling and tending to more urgent matters, it became evident how urgent t...

For before pictures, click Here (beds) and Here (pots) . The pot with garlic, oregano and leeks that got dismantled and everything transplanted. See also, Mr. Moon's hand! He's been so kind in reminding me to get "before" pictures when we get started on projects. Look at those roots! That's the root system for the SMALLER of the two huge oregano bushes that we pulled out after I harvested as much as I could off them. It took 6 hours of work for each of us including lunch and clean-up, but we got the veggie garden about 80% done in one day. Two raised beds and 8 pots later, let's see what we've got: Bed 1, back to front: Leeks, Garlic*, cauliflower. Bed 2, Sugar snap peas in the back corners, with a row of Nasturtium seeds between; mustard green seeds down the middle; broccoli along the front with a lonely soy bean plant in the corner. Pots, left to right: 1) three kinds of oregano; golden, italian, and greek; 2) cilantro and dill; 3) rosemary; 4) Sage se...

One of my favorite blogs is Young House Love . Recently, Sherri & John from YHL instituted a project they call, "Dude, Get On That Already!" It's a feature of those projects that you keep meaning to get to, but just never quite do... For us, since moving in, it was the bathroom. I got it started, and little pieces were coming together here or there but... let's just say, Musical Boxes was a regular game in that room for the last month or so. I wasn't partial to the Americana decor Mum had in there, but I would have been alright if it had stayed. However, in order to help us feel more at home and welcomed, Mum insisted I make it my own. So I did! Once upon a time I had a Celestial themed bathroom and loved it, but I never really completed it. Still, when I needed a new shower curtain last year and found a Celestial one at Value Village, I couldn't pass it up! Same with this Sun basket. I had no idea how we would use it, but I knew it would look great. And h...