I took my truck to the shop to get an oil change. Very overdue but when I picked it up they said it looked fine. YAAAAAAYYYY. I want my 20 year old pickup to live forever.
From there I biked to work for the first time, and my head is in the game. I used to bike to work here and it was a longer and more dangerous route. This route isn't bad. But MAN I'm out of biking shape. My butt hurts, my thighs hurt, my knees hurt, I'm sweaty and winded and feels like I'm barely moving forward (in part because I'm used to driving speed). I'll get some travel deodorant to leave at work but I want this to be the new normal. Not next week because it's thunderstorms every day, but when good weather again I want to slowly ramp up to doing this more. Save wear and tear on truck, get good exercise, be outside - it's a win-win. And I know all my coworkers will think I'm nuts and I'm perfectly fine with that. Right now I'm sort of threatening to some people because I'm so competent and confident, so if they can just pigeonhole me as that quirky white lady, it'll be good.
And now I've gotten a rug for free. It's smaller than I wanted and needs cleaning, but the colors are good for the house and again, free. I recently bought a small rug cleaner on sale, which should do the trick. I took the dog to pick it up and then we were near work so we went for a walk; a coworker was there waiting for someone to bring his keys which he locked inside his truck, and Ziggy made a new friend. She can be so charming when she wants to be. My roofing salesman really wants to meet her.
I have to gear myself up for a power yardwork weekend. I have to get things done.
And I have to gear myself up for my dissertation because my coworkers WILL NOT LET UP. I have three coworkers with doctoral degrees, and two of them are zeroed in on me finishing. One today cornered me and was like YOU NEED A PLAN WHAT IS YOUR STEP RIGHT NOW and YOU NEED TO START COMING TO THE OFFICE AND 6 AM AND LEAVE AT 8 PM AND WORK ON YOUR DISSERTATION WHEN YOU'RE NOT ON THE JOB. It's adorable. Honestly I feel so supported and seen by their genuine interest in getting me across the finish line. I promised after this weekend I'd be back on target. I need to follow up with a committee member who is dragging his feet now in responding. He's retired and on a different timeline. My coworker said "Get someone new then!" and that may be an option. He's just really smart and old school which is how I was trained in methods so I thought we'd be a good match.
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I'm resolving again to buckle down and go into frugality mode. I already blew half my food budget for the month on a Costco run then local-ish cornmeal and tasty pizza at a lovely bakery on the other side of town where I happened to be on the day they make pizza. The pizza was larger than I expected for the price and has been good for several meals. I cancelled my plans for another grocery trip today, realizing that what's in my cupboards, refrigerator, and garden is likely more than enough to eat for awhile. I'm canning garbanzos and white beans right now, and if I need bread then I'll bake bread (though I have to buy bread pans first so that's annoying). Canning beans may seem silly when canned beans are perfectly cheap, but I got into the habit up north where shipping added a lot to the price of heavy food items. Plus I like them in jars without salt; less waste and more control.
And if I keep reminding myself I may be leaving as soon as a year and a half from now, I don't need to buy new things. It's not worth investing in an expensive kitchen storage armoire that is exactly what I want when I will sell it for a fraction of that soon. All my disposable income to decorate is going to the $7,000 rotted joist repairs. Ugh. Oh, actually more like $10,700, including the flat roof.
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I do love my backyard here, and so does the dog. We like hanging out back there, puttering around. So much nature. Really looking forward to a good loquat harvest. And I'm already looking forward to summer, with sweet potatoes, okra, and roselle hibiscus taking over. Sprawling looming summer. Love it. Enjoying "winter" weather now, though it's getting up to almost 80 today which is way too fucking hot for December. I need to stop buying plants. I'll put in the calamondin in the front yard where I found a spot (to keep it away from the backyard citrus canker infestation) and the mulberry will go in the back, but even when I remove those canker-ridden citrus trees I need to not replace them because I'm not going to be here long enough to enjoy them. And I dropped some cash on native plants though not excessively, and now I need to let them settle in and see what thrives. I think the Missouri ironweed has already died perhaps for lack of water. I watered it some, but if something is going to be fragile and fussy, then my yard is not the place for it. I moved things around to get them in better position, expecting the firebush and beauty berry to grow large. I got quite a bit done yesterday in the front yard and I think I need like another three hours and I'll be in pretty good shape. Need to thin and transplant vegetable beds (and figure out how to better grow starts next year), plant a couple trees, dig up more oxalis and bidens alba, and then lay down cardboard/newspaper as weed barrier and pine straw. We'll see how it works. I know I'll still have to weed, but I'm good at staying on top of things like that so long as it's not a huge looming project, like what it's been. It was SO overgrown it was daunting, and here I am seven months later and mostly on top of it. So much shit to dig out that was hard, from giant cane reed to bamboo to elephant ears to bananas to ginger. So many noxious weeds to battle. Just so much work it's been. My hope is that these cute native plants will dig in this winter and in spring and summer they will grow and spread and fill in the yard. I can see what works and what doesn't and move and fill in. I still have the curb strip to deal with but it's just going to wait for now. It's hard to be motivated when my driveway is still so fucked up and just a pile of rubble. I'll get to it. But not today.
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