Officially Started!

Alright!  I have officially started the "garden" in my kitchen.  So far I have basil, cilantro, chives, red bell peppers, tomatoes, and a mixture of different "gourmet" lettuce types growing in containers.  Instead of going completely crazy, as I originally intended, with the first iteration of my container garden I decided to reign it in a bit and see how it goes.  I hope to be able to expand this next year, or even later in the spring since we have such a long growing season here in Georgia.  Instead of investing in large outdoor garden containers, I used a combination of smaller pots that I had on hand with the addition of a few that I had to go pick up.  All of the containers are small enough to be moved easily.  The intention is to keep the herbs on the kitchen window sill all year long, with the lettuce, red bell peppers, and tomatoes being mobile and moving back and forth between the back porch and the house (we have huge rain storms that have literally washed tomatoes off the back porch in previous years).  I did all of the planting (seeds, not existing plants) yesterday using organic plant/veggie soil.  I still have a few herbs to add such as mint and rosemary. I am contemplating adding a few other things as well, but we will see how it goes.  I also re-potted all of our house plants including the new baby spider plants that I have been "growing" in jelly jars on the window sill.  I gently removed the baby plants from their Momma plant and placed them in water until they started to sprout little white roots.  They are now securely tucked into their own tiny pots (to be transplanted as they grow).  In a few more weeks I should be able to move some more into water.  It's much cheaper (and very easy) to replicate the plants at home.  I want to have enough per room to do a good job of cleaning the air.  I have discovered one small problem with the house: we get no direct sunlight in the main living areas.  There is a lot of direct sunlight in the kitchen, as well as one of the bedrooms, but the rest of the house is in the dark until about 4 PM.  I guess I will have a kitchen green house.  Which also led me to this thought: our garage gets SO HOT in the summer that I think I may try to use that as a green house as well (baby plants, etc).  I am not sure if this will work or not...but I think I am going to try.  

Maybe I should re-title this...

Monthly dose of sunshine? 

Honestly, it is not due to a lack of desire to post. I love to write, love to type.  But I have made a concentrated effort to keep myself from sitting at this table, at this laptop.  I was going crazy reading the news, looking for jobs, etc.  I had to get away.  And when I got away, I found out that things weren't quite as bad as I thought they were...or maybe it is just that it wasn't screaming in my face from the pages of the web.  So, I limit the amount of time that I spend sitting here.  I do other things.  I do yard work in the back yard, and the front yard.  I clean the house, I do laundry.  I do yoga.  I work out.  I read.  I applied for a part-time retail job...literally just to get out of the house and get some kind of income coming in. And I got it!  And it's fun.  And I get to dress up and go out to the retail job every once in awhile and do something productive with others.  And I have been cooking a lot.  I am doing everything I can to make this as positive a situation as I can.  We aren't spending as much money, because I am cooking nearly every meal.  And we have both been skipping some meals too.  Not because we can't afford to eat, we have plenty of food.  I think for me it's more because I am realizing that I don't need to eat as much and for him it's partially lack of time.  I also like to think that it might also be because we are eating more nutritious food to begin with...so we have less need for the junk.  

And today I finally responded to some emails from friends.  Something that I have been putting off for awhile.  I know that their intentions are good and that they are only worried and want to know how I am doing and whether I have found a job.  It was just depressing to admit it, to have to tell them what I am doing.  But when I got the "permanent" job offer yesterday (from the company that I contracted with earlier in the year) the first thing I thought was...wow, how am I going to find the time to do all of the wonderful things that I have been packing in to my day for the last month or so?  That is huge to me.  The fact that I was able to step back from a horrible situation and make certain things in my life better even while another part of my life was falling apart.  There are a lot of articles in the news right now about keeping yourself sane while dealing with a job loss/the economy, etc, and I think in my own way I found what I need.  So I think I am trading yoga, yard work, maybe even some gardening for sitting at the laptop.