To Do, To Do.

The boy's taken up karate twice a week after school just so it's too long to hang around at school so we go home to run back. Essays and quizzes need to be graded. It's testing season so half of the kids are missing from class and I have to give, go over and grade make up work. Freshmen, who have had three weeks to work on an essay which is due on Thursday are just coming to approve their thesis and get irritated when I won't tell them what exactly to write. Parents are irritated that the county has scheduled graduation for Memorial Day and are telling me to change it - as if I have a say in the matter. Graduation invitations just went to print last week since the BOE just gave me the date and parents are upset they don't have them yet. Blogs need to be read. I have garden and HARVEST (whoohoo!) pictures to upload with no time or energy. It's been storming regularly at night and the dog paces and paces all night long - he's a Great Dane and his pacing is more like dinosaur stomping while he consistantly licks his chops like Mr. Ed and then sticks his head on the bed and stares at us so the rest of us get no sleep. The kitchen....we're not going to talk about the kitchen. But you know what they say in the South. When the going gets tough, the tough take down the curtains and make a new dress. Please, please tell me y'all get the allusion. The morning will come early, but it shouldn't storm so the night should be peaceful. Sweet gardening dreams.

A Pattern to My Reading?

I may have beat this thread like a dead horse, but I must say I read a lot. A LOT. I've always loved to read and every school vacation found me at the library with the children in tow where I'd usually have books for me on hold so I didn't worry about them running crazy and tearing down the shelves while I perused the stacks as I am wont to do. Now, I've got my NookColor and Kindle and my life is set. Reading is not only at my fingertips, but most of it is free and I can get the library on my Nook as well. I gobble no less than three books a week - maybe more depending on what my weekend looks like and yes, I keep a spreadsheet. This last, however, is a recent habit since I found myself grabbing books at the library in a hurry only to realize I had already read them. I posted a few weeks ago about having read and been affected deeply by The Things They Carried. I still maintain this book as well as Heart of Darkness which I read in college will be two of the few books I'll carry with me throughout my life. When I finished The Things They Carried, my team teacher recommended a book that another of our colleagues recommended to him.

The full title is Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10.

The writing wasn't as moving or as literary as The Things They Carried. The language was blunt, dry and lacking in symbolism, extended metaphors and other generically accepted literary elements, but it wasn't supposed to embody those devices. This is an autobiography and not fiction as the former is billed.

What it does is give you an unparalelled account of the training of a Navy SEAL and then the amazing parallel of how that training is called to action in the wilds of Afghanistan - a combat situation I'd never considered for Navy SEALs.

Whereas The Things They Carried was heart-wrenching and desperate to define and give meaning to a marginally forgotten war, Lone Survivor garnered some of my ire for the depreicating language used towards the enemy, but overwhelmingly inspired me to comprehend and acknowledge that failure is not an option, regarldess of circumstance, in a war that's of the here and now.

I've entered into a reading pattern that's far and away from my previous regiment of drivel with the occasional classic thrown in. I'm better for it.

Any recommendations?

Phew! Crisis Averted

Apparently late last night there was a crazy storm. I should have known about it. I'm a very light sleeper when it comes to rain and wind. The slightest noise outside will wake me up. I should have noticed the wind whipping, I should have noticed the torrents of rain, I should have noticed that Big, our Great Dane, came upstairs and paced all night long as he is want to do in rainy weather, but I didn't.

I was too busy having nightmares about the graduation ceremony. I'm in charge of planning and executing our school's senior activities and the graduation ceremony and the nightmares have already started. I dreamed I forgot to order flowers and we gave the girls weeds, that I forgot to go on the floor of the arena and when I remembered, the ceremony was over and the curtain opened to a grocery store's check out line with all of the parents cheering but no graduates and many, many other horrible things. It's only March!!!!

When I got to school my classroom's neighbor told me her power was out which I scoffed at. Another told me they had trouble getting to school because of a tree down. and I brushed it off. I went out to meet the bus in the afternoon and the wind was whipping. My thoughts immediately turned to the cell packs I had on the deck railing and how I would sort out the multitude of tomato seedling types if they were all scattered on the ground. Oh the humanity!!

I knew for sure they were toast I couldn't wait to get home and when I did, it was grateful I was that everything was still in place and nothing had tumbled to the ground. See. The storm wasn't so bad after all. ;)

Side note, our school's soccer team is sponsoring a military support night so I made some keychains for them to do with as they please. I hope they enjoy them!

The morning comes early, and the dreams have only just started. Sweet dreams!

Soccer Adoption and Happy Birthday, Boy!

At school, some of the lesser sports that don't have the fan base they deserve count on the teachers to support the team. This year, my team teacher and I participated in the Adopt-a-Player program for the soccer team. All it entails is for us to give snacks and small gifts to the player on game days and come to a few of the games to cheer him on.

Friday was sponsor night where we went on the field with our player and shockingly enough, our student presented my team teacher with a hat and me with a lovely bunch of flowers. We were very touched that he would think to have done this as it wasn't the norm for the rest of the team. He's a very quiet, reserved kid who holds himself with a dignity beyond his years. One of those kids whose integrity you wish would rub off on your kids. The flowers are just lovely, aren't they.
Although the boy's birthday party was last week, today is his actual birthday. Happy 7th birthday, Boy! He's such a good kid. He was perfectly content and just down right giddy over presents of clothes, books and Lego gift cards. He's been at his desk all day working on his do it yourself Wimpy Kid book. We had the agreement that once he finished the series we'd get him that book. Sure enough, he's on the last one so he got it and the movie book today. Note the Wimpy Kid shirt he got at his party from his cousin. He's an addict for sure.

The girl, on the other hand, got tired of waiting for the boy to finish and play and crashed herself. You just can't compete with the Wimpy Kid, I'm afraid.

That's all there is about what it is. I broke down and transplanted the squash, zucchini and zephyr squash into the garden yesterday. Forecast is looking good, so I figured I'd gamble. I've just got to beat those SVB or else!

The morning comes early. Sweet birthday-gardening dreams.

It's Good To Be The King

Man, oh man, oh man have I missed going to fetch random dinner items from the garden. I honestly got so complacent with winter that I forgot how wonderful it is to need something and then walk outside. Especially herbs and the like that I'd never buy fresh at the store for having the knowledge that I'd never finish the bunch before it went bad.

Last week, my girlfriend for whom I helped fill her boxes came over and made me her fantastic Indian style chicken dish. It's beautiful isn't it?
I always joke with her that I don't like it. I don't. I don't like half of the things in it and I most certainly despise cilantro, but for some reason it all works well in the dish. I try to explain to her that I don't particularly like it, but I crave it and can't stop eating it. It's rather bizarre.

The fun garden end of it is that we needed an onion and I popped out back and grabbed one. Way too awesome. Then, tonight the kids wanted breakfast for dinner. It was on the tip of my tongue to say no just by reflex and then thought why not!? Waffle House and IHOP serve breakfast for dinner every day of the year. Why can't I? So I made them their breakfast and then went to the garden for myself and got some garlic, basil and onion and made an awesome omelet.

And forgot to take a picture of it until I was done. There's no way I would have gone to the store to buy the basil or the onion or the garlic just to make one omelet, but boy was it ever nice just to run outside and grab it.

It's surely good to be gardening again. The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

A Harvest Monday of a Sort...

It's been a long time since I've pulled anything out of the garden to eat. A few days ago I did pull an onion, but that's not much. This weekend, while the weather was beautiful, I decided to cut back the rosemary tree that was growing in the zucchini box and got over a grocery bag full of rosemary cuttings.
I really let that bush get out of hand. I put the entire bag in the mailroom and sent out a come and get it email. Some of it was gone by the end of the day, but not much. I have more rosemary than I can use in a lifetime, that's for sure. Sadly, I didn't keep it and it went to waste, but we've got so much rosemary growing still AND...there's that thing I did in the other corner yard which I'll get to in a moment, but rosemary here doesn't die in the winter, so I now am really going to be drowning in rosemary.

The squash, zucchini and the new zephyr that I'm trying this year are growing nicely and basking in the warm weather we've had.
The tomatoes have finally decided to sprout. I don't baby these. I plant them in the cell packs outside and just sit them out there. When they sprout, they sprout and then if the weather turns south I bring them in for the night, but this way I don't have to worry about hardening off which I'm too durn impatient to do. It was about time as well. I was getting crazed that there would be no Cherokee Purple plants this year. Oh no. That would certainly not do. Yesterday, 14 cells had germinated. Today, 24 have so I'm feeling a lot better. Some, however, seem to be growing upside down which is rather odd, but I remember happening last year as well. Should I flip them or just let them go?
Now, my friends, here it is. The proof of my weakness. I planted the herb garden. I haven't been able to do much with this other corner yard because it doesn't get a lot of sun, so I figured an herb garden would work well, but the problem there is that we don't use many herbs....so I put in the ones we'll use. I put in rosemary, oregano and two kinds of basil. I could really plant the whole thing in basil and freeze pesto for the rest of my life, but the one rosemary plant I have in the corner yard is amazing and now I have three! It's overkill, but hopefully I can do something with it, or if nothing else, put it on the corner to give to neighbors.
It looks pretty now and there's plenty of room for the plants to grow and for me to add more basil from cuttings of these. Hopefully my gamble will pay off. If not, I tried. It just feels good to see green again! I'm thinking those squash will go in before you know it. I've just got to beat the first SVB invasion like I did last year.

The morning comes early. Especially now with the time change which, in my opinion, is totally un-American. Sweet herb gardening dreams.

Pathetic

I'm weak.

That's all I have to say.

;)

But it looks good out there. For now, at least it does.

Pictures coming soon.