A true cold front rolled in, alhamdulillah, and it's chilly. I wore autumnal clothes to work and was comfortable. I slept with a blanket and almost slept through the night. It's amazing. The only downside is that it's been suuuuper windy, but we'll take it.
The dog is over the moon about this cool weather - every time we go outside she runs laps of delight. She tries to get me to always go outside with her. She is so very full of energy I can't keep up in the least.
We are a cold weather pair, we discovered that for certain up north. I just don't like slippery ice. Or gaslighting bosses.
The cool weather energizes me, though not nearly so much as the dog. I'm actually planning meals, I think for the first time since my return in May. I've been living on prepared foods. And I've been going a step healthier than cornchips, but not by too much. On that, Costco has these frozen uncooked tortillas that I quite like - I wish they were corn but oh well, they still make a good spinach quesadilla. I'm trying to keep my meal planning modest in case I shut down again, but I've taken fish and ground beef out of my freezer in hopes of meals to pair with potatoes and mizuna (from my garden), squash and wild rice (which I somehow bought a large tub of at Costco).
Speaking of food procurement, I'm having yard eggs delivered this morning. They will be very dirty and that is ok. They're only $3/dozen and I don't frankly know how she manages to keep them so inexpensive - from my own experience I know feed is expensive. But I'm kind of excited about this. I would like to get as much local food as I can, but it can run so much more expensive that it's hard to justify when on a tight budget as I am.
Friends gave me a lot of seeds for my garden but some haven't been growing, so I put in some replacements - calendula and chamomile. This is the kind of task that looms large in my mind, trying to get the gumption to do it, feeling taunted by it for weeks - and then it takes no more than 5 minutes and handwashing to have it done. It will be nice to have flowers and hopefully I'll use them for medicine. Have a couple more beds to plant - chard and mizuna and cabbage in one, beets and carrots and radishes in another - which I"m probably planting too late but oh well. We'll see how it goes. I have some beans and squash in a bed that I planted waaaay too late for them, but since it's a la nina year who knows what winter will look like. And I figured the beans could fix nitrogen even if I don't get to eat from them. They're placeholder beans. The deep beds for the root vegetables are all fucked up because I ran into them with my truck. It's right at the street so visible and I need to somehow hide the damage, though that just fits in with my whole vibe of trashy front yard. The native plants I've been very slowly putting in are all taking quite well - so far there's beautyberry and mealy blue sage and frogfruit and aquatic milkweed. Hopefully it's less windy today and I"ll have a couple hours late this afternoon to do some more planting and mulching. Yesterday was talking with a coworker about the mental health good that comes from digging in the dirt. (I'm trying to not be bitter that I have to work today.) I think once I get the yard in and it starts to grow and fill in that it'll look quite nice in a certain way. I'm liking that I won't have to water much. Now I have near limitless water because I have a dehumidifier running all the time and it's pulling more than ten gallons of water a day. It's nuts. But my hope is if I can ever find someone to correctly fix my windows and ceilings and roof that this humidity issue will be solved (currently water is running into the exteruir wall and out the interior of the windows anytime it rains).
I dream of the day these issues will be solved and I can actually move into this house. With rugs and cupboards and a couch that isn't disgusting. To be living in a damaged place that I can't move forward with is very stressful and demoralizing. And I'm really struggling to find people to do repairs well. And I'm struggling too with the knowledge that I may have to go through this every year. Probably not every single year, but all too often until I leave here. And that leaving timeline is anywhere from about one to five years probably, depending on housing market and job satisfaction. I know I can't live in this house when I can't handle stairs anymore - it's elevated up about twelve steps - but I also have to realize that when the dog gets old that it will be a problem too.
Also of course i'm just over this house. It's the house I've owned the longest (nearly six years now) and have loved the least. It's just been practical - from the big backyard and quiet for the dog to the studio in the back helping cover the mortgage. But it's been a pain in the ass since the beginning, often for things out of my control - like how the water company KEEPS DIGGING UP MY FRONT YARD AND LEAVING IT DESTROYED. Massive sinkholes and various other problems which they refuse to fix. But also the house itself and its weird layout and post-katrina reconstruction. Almost zero closets, small rooms with bad flow, not level floors, and a bunch of bondo-level repairs that are coming to roost now. It's not a great house nor a great neighborhood - it has absolutely none of the New Orleans charm that lured me here. IT's just practical. And it does work, and I'm grateful. But when I sell it there will be zero nostalgia, like I'm having now for my last house up north. And it will likely be hard to sell for all its quirks - it was on the market for a looong time before I bought it. I'll need another housing price surge like what we just had and has passed now.
Local friends on Facebook posting about how exhausting and difficult it is to live here. Yep. 100%. I've not ever encountered anywhere more difficult, for the constant barrage of hits from every angle. Especially true if a homeowner and have been here for decades. It's easy to gloss over the challenges at first, but once in it, it's just so hard. Nothing works right.
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