Lucas has always had a thing for birds. So when he mentioned wanting a bird feeder, I did my job.
We offer 3 suet cakes, a tray of mealworms, black oil sunflower seeds, peanuts, and a regular seed mixture. Plus water.
It goes from mostly-completely full, to almost completely empty in about 24 hours.
So we diligently go out and refill it every day. This adds up cost-wise, but we are able to do so much bird watching and my Lucas is thrilled!
Rachel bought him a really nice pair of binoculars from a thrift store, and my dad cleaned them up real nice. I bought him a Bird’s of Ohio field guide so we can all identify what we see.
I’m buying bulk seed and mealworms from the Tractor Supply store, which is really the only way to buy seed. The suet cakes you can find anywhere for about $1.00-1.50 each. This adds up, but I can buy them here and there even just from the grocery store. The peanuts (raw and unsalted) disappear fast, but I can also buy those from the grocery store. Though I do want a source to buy them in bulk. It’s probably much cheaper that way. Anyway, we’re doing our best to manage the costs, as it is worth it. However, if anyone would like to kick some cash towards Lucas and his birds, here is my Paypal.
I’m going to be honest, this is Luke’s special interest, but most of us are enjoying it! As far as I’m concerned we’re going to maintain this year-round as long as we live here and probably at our next home too.
Ok. Starting from the back. The three on the left with the cage, as explained in me last post, are Roma tomatoes. The one on the right in the black pot is cherry tomatoes.
The two pots immediately in front of the Roma tomatoes are sweet basil. Two plants in each pot.
To the right, immediately in front of the cheery tomatoes is a strawberry plant. It’s baby and might not thrive. And even if it does thrive we’re going to have to fight the skunks and raccoons off.
The final pot there on the right is curly parsley. It’s kind of limp so I cut the worst of it off and it’s hanging up to dry. I’m hoping what’s left will double in size. I want a parsley bush. I’m going to need a parsley bush because the 8yo has declared it a tasty snack.
Sweet BasilCurly ParsleyStrawberries
My rose, named Joy, is in the ground. She has fairly decent soil, lots of worms, and a few handfuls of blood meal. She’s a happy baby. In a few weeks, after the hibiscus is in, I’m going to buy a bag of mulch and cover this bit of earth.
Finally… Sammy went to the garden center with me on one of three trips and made friends.
Meet Sammy’s petunias, Patricia and Lucifer.
She was really good and didn’t beg for a million things. So when she fell in love with the section of petunias, I wasn’t capable of telling my budding gardener no. (Pun intended.)
I’ve got real posts coming but I need to gather my thoughts first. So I decided now would be a good time to share my current plant babies.
These are all my current babies as they sit on my desk. Sorry if the lighting is throwing weird colors. I have a glow light hanging right above them.
In the back left, we have what has finally been identified as impatiens. I’ve had this baby for almost 3 years now. She was a mother’s day gift from Sammy that was meant to be planted outside with friends. However, I stuck her in a pot on my desk and she has flourished. She’s currently not in bloom but those are soon to come. I trimmed her back quite a bit a couple of months ago now. She was getting rather out of hand and quite leggy. Anyway, this was meant to be a small dainty plant that lasted a season. Instead, I have a 3-year-old bush that keeps trying to take over my desk.
This is Lucille my parade rose. She is a little over a year old at this point. She looks small now, but that’s because I recently cut her down too. She was reaching for the ceiling. But I wanted her to focus her energy on new growth, instead of height, so it was time for a trim.
These little guys are my only surviving succulents. A have killed over a dozen succulents in the past year and honestly, I don’t think these three are going to last much longer. I’m just not meant for succulents. But, considering just a few years ago I couldn’t keep anything at all alive, I have come a long way.
I take that back. I this guy is also a succulent and I think? He might? Be thriving? I’m not sure. He’s just kinda stretching and growing and I guess I’m going to continue to water him once a month and see what happens. It helps that I keep accidentally feeding him blood. But he’s covered in hundreds of little knives. Blood loss is inevitable.
This is Allie my aloe. She is a little over a year old at this point. I honestly thought she was a goner up until recently. I think she really likes sitting as close to the humidifier as she is. And the grow light over her is giving her endless power. So where she was slowly dying before, she’s now really super healthy. I’m looking forward to an abundance of growth in the future and being able to harvest aloe from her as needed.
This last little lady is Ingrid my ivy. She is my newest acquisition. I’ve had her for a handful of months, but I still don’t really have a feel for her. I see new growth on her all the time, but she’s forever shedding leaves. I don’t know if she’s thriving, slowly dying, or somewhere in between.
Pain pills don’t work. Muscle relaxers don’t work unless I’m given enough to keep them in my system at all times. My doctors will only agree to 15 a month to use once the (daily) headaches start. They do nothing once the headaches start but they do work to prevent them. The doctors are worried I’ll become dependent and won’t enable me to live pain-free.
We disagree on whether or not dependence is a bad thing.
These days the bulk of my pain is in my shoulders and neck which then leads to tension headaches. Loosening those muscles and keeping them loose makes the headaches nonexistent.
But alas.
One thing they were willing to do for me is to get me in Physical Therapy which is doing wonders. But only gets me through part of the week. I need to be doing those exercises twice a week, but the set up on the home front makes that hard as there really isn’t a place to tie a therapy band down.
In unrelated news that is going somewhere, Thomas is currently going through pre-season workouts with intent to join the football team in the coming fall. He work-outs with the team Monday-Thursday but goes back over the weekend to work out some more with a buddy.
Yesterday he needed to blow off some steam and asked if I could drive him to the school so he could work out. I threw on some clothes and grabbed my keys and a book, fully intending to read while he worked out.
Then I smelled the smell of a weight room. And I’m telling you, that smell turns me jock every time.
I hate sports and I hate working out, but for some reason, I love to weight lift. I’m not interested in finding the max I can lift. I like a reasonable weight with a few sets of 10. Long and slow. I honestly crave regular access to this type of workout.
So I entered the weight room and immediately forgot about my book. With Thomas’s approval that I lift with him and a promise that I’d ask for help if needed, I started working out alongside him.
Chronic pain means I need to respect my limits. I can lift higher, but I went to a happy medium so I didn’t hurt myself further. I was able to really work my muscles and help take control of my health.
Of course, I woke up Sunday morning regretting life, but it was still a good type of pain. I’d earned the right to hurt like that by actually using my body.
We went back to the gym a few hours after I woke up, and picked up a friend and teammate of Thomas’s. They worked together spotting each other and trying to increase their maximums in various lifts. I tied my therapy band to a solid post and worked out my sore shoulder muscles. It did wonders in relieving the pain in them.
So I think that’s the plan. Saturdays we’ll go and we’ll lift together. Sundays we’ll go and I’ll work on my therapy bands. His friends are invited along so long as there is no fighting and no one makes fun of me for how I exercise.
Thomas assured me he’d punch anyone who did.
And I informed him that broke the no fighting rule.
We gave the box to Sammy and she’s built herself quite the little fort. Only it’s not so little because said fort can hold all three of my children with room to spare.
Said box fort happened to come with a brand new washing machine (first brand new one we’ve ever had in 16 years of marriage) and the washing machine came with a drier friend.
And actually my parents bought them. Even though I have a new job and our finances are improving, we just could not afford new appliances when, once again, we found ourselves in dire need. My mom, who has been adding in the procuring of used sets every few years over the last 16 is apparently sick of the process and decided that at this point, we really do need brand new with warranty. Luckily my dad was happy to chip in. So with their combined budget in mind, they shopped around and bought us they could find in their budget. It was a decent budget and they bought amazing, beautiful, high capacity machines. And yes, they bought the extended warranties.
Because even though these machines are brand new and have no history of abuse, the simple fact that they will be doing laundry for 5, and soon enough 6, means we will wear them out faster than most machines have to worry about. They will be well-loved and cared for, but they will be used. Oh, will they be used.
I am super excited about my new appliances. However, I’m also super excited that we (it was actually 100% Pat in the best daddy move he’s made this year) talked the delivery guys into leaving a box (the company gets paid to recycle them) because the box they left makes quite the fort. It’s so big it doesn’t even fit in Sammy’s room. She immediately took the new art kit that my friend Marissa bought her for her birthday to the walls and is having a blast decorating it. I just can’t get over how small Sammy is compared to that box. In reality, she’s getting so big, but that box dwarfs her.
So. This is my last Pi Day working in a math department of a university, and it falls on a work day. So…
I did my research into the department budget for the year, which we’re encouraged to spend. And then I asked if we could use some of the department “employee moral” budget to throw a little party for the college. (Not the entire university. But the college of art, science, and technology, within the university.) I received an enthusiastic yes and here we are a month later ready to celebrate.
We’re getting pizza (pies) for lunch and a bunch of dessert pies and it’ll be good wholesome fun!
Then of course, we’re celebrating at home as well. Nothing fancy. Just the 5 of us eating pie.
I like to sometimes actually throw a party for my friends and family, but a Thursday is no a good night for that. Next year it falls on a Saturday, so I’ll have to host something then.
