that 5:2 life

 Working five days a week and only having two days off per week isn't my favorite thing.  I even took a day off sick last week as a mental health day to get a bunch of work done, and I'm still scrambling this fine Saturday morning.  

IT doesn't help that I pulled out my back while hauling 19 concrete blocks.  I'm moving slowly-slowly from that.  Someone offered them for free on Facebook (she just had a baby and she wanted them GONE - I think in some maternal urge to protect her older child from himself), and it took me two trips but I schlepped them all from her backyard to mine, and then I set up a garden bed in the back against the fence for more okra.  Now I need to shovel all the soil in and plant okra seeds that I put to soak last night. 

I'm really taking over too much of my backyard with all this planting.  It's a full third of my large backyard now.  I don't even know how many beds.  

But then I take greens to my coworker on her first day back from COVID and she tells me how important all the plant medicine I'd given her was in her recovery.  Those moments just fuel me further in all my crazy ways.  

This weekend and next there are native plant sales that I want to hit; I want about 20 more native plants for a native habitat certification.  It know it's a silly thing, to want that plaque in my front yard, but it validates what I'm doing.  And not everything will thrive and I won't end up liking everything, but this native plant habitat yard already provides me so much pleasure.  I wander around it all the time, saying I'm weeding but really I'm just checking in with all these delightful plants.  A friend came over who saw the yard before, and she was awed and amazed.  I have done so much work and there's just one more stretch to go, about half the curb strip.  I need to weedwhack low, dig out around the edges, lay cardboard and weight it down, then pile mulch up on it.  And I need to plant.  But it's supposed to be like 87 degrees today and that's too hot for a person like me, so once I finish this coffee I'll head out to do the backyard work, and then after 5:30 when the sun has moved I'll hope for a breeze and do some frontyard work.  

Hopefully in the heat of the day with AC blaring I'll have the energy to do some of the countless indoor tasks that need to get done.  

Will i ever get caught up?  I mean, I won't obviously - there will always be tasks to be done, like vacuuming and bathroom cleaning and cooking.  But am I getting the hard things done to coast later?  Good grief, I so hope so.  

It's all *hand gestures around* so overwhelming.  I need more time off.  I won't get it.  I need to maximize the time and energy I have.  

***

What would be amazing is if I could nap in the middle of the day.  I'm generally not a napper and have had no luck lately.  But last night I told my body to wake up early to take advantage of the cool (Relatively), and I was wide awake at 5:20 am, despite going to sleep well after 11.  A nap would help the deficit I'm running.  Maybe I could start getting up at 5:20 regularly.  I didn't get out to the yard until the sun was up more like 6:30 but then I got two hours of work done.  Could I garden an hour every morning?  That would take care of most needs for gardening and start the day on a good note.  I"ve gotten so lazy in the mornings now that I don't have to leave my house until 8:20.

One of the things I'm pondering now is a painter for the exterior of my house.  A friend recommended a guy and he has rave reviews, but I was quite put off by him.  His quote is lower than most (by a couple thousand dollars).  I went to look at the friend's house that was painted 4-5 years ago and the work was ... fine. Not great.  OK. And for some reason I have in my head that I want my house to be fancy and gorgeous, which is crazy because it's a modest home.  So fine is probably ok.  And while I'm stressed out at three weeks of them coming to house and into yard (and the dog not having freedom), they would finish may be end of June.  Being finished would be amazing.  But I'm gunshy after the bad men workers I've had - the roofers who did not properly pitch the roof, the sheetrockers who had no idea what they were actually doing.  I'm so tired of this.  So very, very tired.  But all the reviews of this company are good, so maybe the COVID tension we had is not that big of a deal.  (I do not want to shake hands, thankyouverymuch.)  And so I overthink.  

OK. Walk dog.  Laundry. Get plants.  Proceed with day. 

hypocrisy

 I don't want to spend a lot of effort thinking about my workplace because it's a crazy place, but sometimes I just have to say it because it's so crazy.

1.  A lot of people are out sick with COVID, mostly because of a mandatory work event that put them in close contact.  I did not go to said event, and if I had I would have stayed at a distance and worn an N95 mask, but it was a really unnecessary event so why on earth hold it when we're surging again?  

2.  Yesterday my supervisor said: "I thought of you because my electricity went out and now I have to hire an electrician to take care of it.  I know you wished this on me because of your electrical problems."  This is how she constantly frames the world, as a zero-sum game.  If something bad happens to me I DO NOT wish it on other people, but she does and that's always her default.  She always wants to speak badly of other people, sets them up as villains.  It's the craziest thing.  And I corrected her as usual but it makes no impact because she is so set in her ways and beliefs that the world is out to get her.  Unfortunately she's the boss and responsible for many people and this is how she treats all of us - which is a big reason why turnover is so high, of course.

3. A few minutes after the end of the workday, that same person sent an email to employees about how the workday is what it is and everybody has to be there the whole time without advance approval from her.  I'm guessing some people left early.  I don't know because I left early, but I had her approval.  Things are slow right now so a lot of us are catching up on out of work things like doctor's appointments and such, and there is no clear way to seek approval of such things.  And she is very difficult to communicate with.  So very difficult.  But what really kills me about this angry demand that people have butts in seats for our operating hours is that she is ALWAYS late.  An hour or more EVERY DAY.  I have never seen here there on time, ever.  Then she sometimes stays like 10 minutes after close or so, but very rarely more than that.  And of course she takes off time regularly for appointments and such.  So rather than speaking directly with anyone whom she feels did not seek her permission appropriately, she sends out this blanket email that is the most hypocritical thing I've ever seen.

But also - I'm a salaried professional.  I have to carry a work cell phone.  Rarely do people call me, but they can and I am required to answer.  I'm not a call center employee or a receptionist - the office does not need me in my seat to function.  Of course that's a higher level issue that is hard for a lot of middle managers to grasp, but it's a lot easier to see how stupid it is for a middle manager to be shrieking at people for doing what she does every single day.  

Anyway, now I'm letting it go.  I called in sick and I'm having a mental health day, gardening and making jam and such.  Those crazy people will have to be without me today.

mulberries

 A stranger on Facebook offered mulberries from her backyard, which she tarps to capture them.  I went right after leaving work and scooped them up and now I'm cleaning and destemming to make jam. It takes time.

It all takes so much time.

So maybe I will spend a sum total of five hours making this jam, and then just my labor along comes out t nearly $20/jar.  Of course it's not labor like a job but it's labor nonetheless.

All the time I spend preserving food and gardening is time that I'm not finishing up my house repairs, nor cleaning and organizing (my garage needs it so desperately, I can't find anything).  It's also time that I'm not working on my PhD, which I think I would like to finish but I have a huge block about.  

Also time that I'm not working and earning more money.  My job now is so comfortable in so many ways, especially in comparison to the last.  It also earns considerably less money.  I should be on a push to earn more.  I don't think it's possible with my current job, but in awhile I can look elsewhere.

When I'm retired I can return to my lady farmer ways.  I could have chickens again, vast gardens.  

But I need to scale it back now.  I need to push on the house - finish the front yard native garden, do all the interior repairs, get exterior painter lined up.  I still haven't even finished all the cleaning from the ceiling repairs - there is still dust in some cupboards and rooms.  It's been overwhelming, and I take it step by step and then it's ok.  But now I'm obsessed with things like making more jam, planting more okra. 

And I don't think I"m wrong for most of the world.  But it's becoming too much of a distraction for me for right now.

this girl wants to garden all the time, garden all the time, garden all the time

My coworker says I make my gardening a second job, but the difference between gardening and a job is that I really enjoy gardening.  (I mean, I enjoy my job usually too, but a hobby is different.)  But it does get a little consuming.

Yesterday I left work and went straight to Costco to pick up cardboard, which I use to smother weeds and grass as I convert my front lawn to a native plants patch.  They said they didn't have any by the crusher, so based on a previous invitation I walked through the store and helped myself to all the slips and large boxes that I saw nearly empty.  It was a large pile indeed, and it is now stacked neatly beside the street, ready to be laid down once I get the mulch on Saturday.  Free mulch, so I load up my truck.  Honestly, it completely exhausts me, but it's free.  But only on Saturdays.  Did I mention that it's free?

And I have to get more compost to rejuvenate the beds, and I've arranged a pickup for probably Saturday as well.  That's a lot of hauling.  

Yesterday I stayed up waaay too late processing the last loquat harvest.  Now it is in the freezer waiting for me to have time to make up another batch of jam before hurricane season.  It also is taking forever to process the cabbage because it's got slugs and earthworms in it, and their debris.  So I clean it really well to cook it, which means it's not great for sauerkraut like I'd expected.  And it also means I'm eating A LOT of cabbage.  (Tonight is cabbage with pancetta and linguini and this weekend I'll make a big batch of okonomiyaki to freeze)  I have also canned 8 jars already and may do more - I'm not crazy about it canned (tried one jar) but it may be ok tossed in as an ingredient. 

Just now I planted my first two sweet potato slips, which is kind of exciting.  It's my first time growing slips to plant myself, I think - I just put three certified sweet potatoes into potting soil in a spinach clamshell I got when I first came back - I wouldn't say I'm a hoarder, but I sure do like to reuse things.  And I just arranged a tomato-cucumber plant swap with a neighbor.  I always lose to vine borers but it's fun to try.  I plan to grow a lot of okra (pickled okra rocks my world) and green beans (which can nicely).  I cannot expect anything to survive the freezer, so it's all dehydration or canning here, what isn't fresh eaten.  

I've still got some plants I'm hoping will root - a red buckeye and a witch hazel that I got on a trip west last month.  I just put in some artemisia and turks cap to root as well, clippings from people nearby.

I love free things.  I'm on a quite tight budget and free is great.  But also I like giving things away - like the young woman who came to pick up my 1/2 full Costco container of laundry detergent.  The container was too big for me to manage and I was making a mess and I was aggravated - so now she gets to wash her kids' school uniforms and I get to justify getting a better for me product.  Which I just did.  Win-win.  

And now I've ordered seeds.  I could get more free but I wanted to just get this done.  I got watermelon and more okra and more beans and cowpeas and peppers ... and I just got some seeds for winter too while I was at it.  One less thing to think about during hurricane season.  

I'm delighting in having more ability to get things done lately - not sure if it was the acupuncture that helped or just another wave in the cycles of my energy, but I'm tackling projects little by little which is how I have to do it.  My to-do list is very long (just to really clean all the construction dust from my house is such an ongoing chore) but I'll get there.  And I'm even tackling some appointments and such - yet another quote for exterior housepainting today.  Identified a hair salon to get a haircut - it's been two and a half years since my last haircut, and my pandemic hair is weighting me down.  I just do not like long hair and I will be so happy when it's short again, though I do dislike the styling requirements.  I have very thin, fine hair and there is no winning.  

But things are good.  Gardening is good.

hurricanes

 A meteorologist I follow just posted a photo of Ida radar and many of us reacted viscerally.  It's not hurricane season yet.  Many of us are still dealing with Ida damage.  But it was a new report, which I haven't read yet - but just saw a headline that if it had been 15 miles different path, it would have overtopped levees near me.

Y'all.

I moved here after Katrina (as a result of Katrina, as I came on rebuilding efforts and feel madly in love with this place) and went through storms like Gustav and Isaac.  Gustav was mandatory evacuation but I snuck right back in and went through weeks without electricity.  Isaac I just hunkered down. For both of those I was in older houses that weathered it without drama and the windows created a nice cross breeze and the gas stove meant friends came over to eat through my freezer together.  My first responder lover came to shower and nap in the breezy space.  These are good memories.

Ida was different.  The house is newer and less adapted to this reality.  I have a crazy dog with requirements making evacuation harder.  I am older and less fit.  I have no gas stove.  And so on.  But also, this was the first storm that caused me significant damage, and dealing with all that has been challenging.

And the thought of sitting in a flooded bowl again ... well, no thank you.

Parts of life here make it so enjoyable, like gardening year-round.  I live in a peaceful neighborhood.  But I have to leave.  Next year about this time I anticipate putting my house on the market and moving on.  Hurricanes are no longer for me.  Because I think they will just keep getting more frequent and stronger.  So I flee like a rat jumping ship.  

And in the year remaining in this place I have loved so very deeply, I will enjoy it.  I will grow and eat alllll the okra.  

little bits of help

 After having an electrician come yesterday to fix the part of my house with no electricity (loose neutral in the breaker box), I had to have an AC tech come to fix the AC.  And I'm so glad I did.

First, I'm super grateful for my AC folks.  The woman who owns the company is wonderful and we often chat, and she has always met my needs.  So she sent someone as soon as she could, for which I'm abundantly grateful because it's supposed to be almost 90 degrees tomorrow.  (I took my 1/2 gallon of fermenting sauerkraut to climate controlled work, just to be sure it's safe.)  

Turns out it was an electrical problem, so he got it running but I called the electrician to come back and be sure that the partial trip wasn't sign of a bigger issue.  They came almost immediately.  This is quite reassuring.  

The painter is nearly finished, and I find him easy to work with.  He's vetted by my coworker, so I just give him a key and let him be.  He looks like a stereotypical crack addict, and while I'd treat him with respect even if he were, I know that instead his life's passion is his kids.  He does absolutely everything for his kids.  It's sometimes a little frustrating because he could have finished here days ago, but his kids come first.  

So anyway, I had to come home for these appointments, and then it wasn't really worth returning to work because it was near closing time, which gave me a little free time as a little gift.  I harvested greens that I'm about to cook up with grits and I harvested another heap of loquats which I'll process and freeze to make another batch of jam this weekend.  (And then enough jam; any future loquats will need to be dehydrated or some other such non-jam function and also non-freezer because as we approach hurricane season I know not to keep anything of value in my freezer.)  I canned up a half of head of cabbage that had split in my garden.  I've never canned cabbage before but the Facebook group raves about this "recipe" so I had to give it a shot.  I've only harvested three heads of cabbage but I'm already done with sauerkraut and have been eating it every day.  

All of this - the repairs, the resolutions, the food produced in my backyard - is such a help.  I feel so much better and so does the dog.  She has gotten to "help" three workers this week already and so she feels very important.  (AC guy called "turn the breaker off" and she rushes to the electrical box in case I've forgotten where to go.  She's hilarious.)

The new thermostat is installed and I painted around the back.  These little things are so helpful to well-being, less things sitting around waiting for me to have the energy to address it.  When the electrician came yesterday I had him install electrical boxes for ceiling light fans, and then I just installed the lights myself.  After weeks without light or fan in living/dining area, this is amazing to have again.  And I saved considerable money doing it myself.  But there are so many other things I need to do for myself, and it's tiring.  I need to change out all the outlets and light switches that got paint on them from the last asshole.  I could pay somebody to do it but it's just too easy to just do myself.  I have so much cleaning to do even though I hired someone to do it - it's gotten dirty again with continued work, but also I am more thorough at cleaning than almost anyone I know.  I want to know it's my level of clean before I start to move back in.

A friend who is very stylish offered to help me decorate my house and I think I'll take her up on it.  Even if I'm only here for another year, it would be nice to have a nice space.  I have zero talent like that myself.  Tomorrow I have blinds people coming to discuss options.  I think I've found a place to order new window screens (my current ones are in very bad condition).  And then hopefully the inside of my house is not my all consuming dread.  I'll need to focus on the exterior then.  

Anyway, I'm just super grateful that I could take off the afternoon to take care of these things.  It makes so much difference to my wellbeing.  

So now to start the greens and the grits.  It will be a wonderful meal.  And I will keep my house cool and sleep very well tonight for the first time in weeks.  Hopefully tomorrow the aches and pains have subsided enough to be able to do the deep cleaning I will need.  And then I will be able to start moving back into my life.  

Though I do need to figure out a pot rack solution for my kitchen.  And storage.  And table. 

sunday discomfort

 Anxiety is a bitch.  The worst for me is how immobilizing it is.  

I am ardently hoping that once the house repairs are done that this will abate and that space will be filled with something else.  Not having my house to live in is very difficult, not knowing how many repairs to the repairs I will have to do, how much recleaning.  I'm not future tripping, I've just been going through this for nearly a year, since I returned, and I am so tired. 

It's a nice day again and I really need to get out and dig and mulch.  Yesterday I picked loquats, too many, and I'll be making that jam today and processing some more for freezing.  That processing is so timeconsuming and darkens my fingertips.   

My dog so desperately wants a walk but that is so anxiety-provoking I cannot.  I wish she were not crazy and we could just walk around, but the constant fear of calamity is too much for me today.

but also just being in the front yard feels so heavy today, too exposed and somebody may approach.  I have a pickup load of mulch that I must unload, a bunch of cardboard to use for mulching, and it really needs to get done.  I will just do it, but I will be so grateful to be done.  To hide again in my backyard, in my house.

My job takes all my people energy.  I am essentially unable to cultivate and maintain friendships when I have a job that takes all my people energy.  It all takes too much.  And for years I could rely on the cultivating I did when not employed, but that groundwork has expired.  

And it is not to say that my job is exceptionally challenging.  It's actually great for me in so many ways.  I cannot do some things that cause stress that I did in my last job because it made my heart start fritzing, and I do not have that issue anymore thank goodness.  There's just low-level stress from crazy dysfunction.  

Of course I wish I earned more money.  But I appreciate the lack of demand on me compared to most jobs I've had.  

OK, time to do more things.