Day 2 Day radishes

March 30/ planting tomatoes

A friend and I have just been planting tomato seeds in her greenhouse.  She has a wonderful green house that will give our plants a good healthy start. Every now and then we had to leave the green house as it was so hot.  I came prepared with $25.00 of tomato seeds and little peat tablets which when watered, grow to the size of a small Tylenol bottle.  Plus we had a few every small pots for planting more.  Everything went well.  We carefully added the small heirloom seeds in the pots.  We had the right numbers in the pots and peat, and they were marked for variety.  Some actually had tags, but most were in the pots and with their seed packet with name near by.

 

Having good tomatoes this summer has kept me going all winter.  I have researched tomato seeds and varieties.  I could have done the easy thing and just ordered everything out of the Territorial Seed Company Catalogue where it says “coastal climate” for tomatoes.   You are guaranteed to get tomatoes of some sort, but they are not especially anything, except better than the grocery store.  One woman on the Internet told me to buy Russian heirlooms.  So I have several Russian varieties with the names of Black Krim and Black Prince.

 

I had just finished planting when my friend went to take a phone call.  I watered the seeds in the little peat tablets.  I was watering with a drip only.  All the seeds came out of their holes, and over the tops of the tablets.  There was no way to figure what seed came from which tablet in what row.  This has changed our plans to selling, ‘Nameless Tomatoes :cool climate’ at our local plant sale. 

March 28/ Cleaning up the laundry room

  Sometime back I wrote an article about “Shedding”.  The article touted a book by Julie Morgenstern named: Shedding when Organizing is Not Enough.  I received my copy hot off the press.  The book is useful for those especially in transitions, but it is applicable to anyone.  This is the deal, you have to free up, or “make space” for your space, your time, and your habits.  It is suggested that you start with your space and then move on to time and habits.  I personally have no problem with time, but especially space and some habits need to be changed.  You pick a theme, and then you make a survey for your self.  My theme is Calm Courage.  The survey is fun to make. 

 

Space is very important to me.  For me it is how I control things.  If my life is stressed I need my house to look better than normal.  If things are cool, all can wait. 

 

Yesterday I started in the laundry room.  Quell pit. Now in my laundry room are a lot of things: to do ironing, rags, Christmas wrap, brooms, 2 laundry baskets, plus and an extra to use for putting away laundry , a sewing machine, one large crock pot, a dust buster, etc. . . .  and a liquor box of photos.  I have added photos to this particular box for 40 years.  The guilt and trauma of having these photos could drive me to drugs.  I have investigated having them scanned but so far have found it too expensive.   But today on the Internet I see you can get some scanned for five cents a photo, or get this, $150 dollars for a box with as many photos as you can fit in the box.  Size of the box is not specified. 

 

 I have spent all afternoon sorting photos and this week those babies are being put in a box and they are being mailed away.  And if they get lost in the mail, I do not care, I still have the space of a liquor box already under my laundry room table for me to look at empty space, or use for something else. 

March 27/ For NoName/her first house

March 26/ house in Florida

This is the house that we stayed in while in Florida.  The owner has never seen the house so here are some photos for her.  It was a very comfortable two person house and one of the smallest in the vast gated subdivision, but I thought one of the cutest. Not many young folk there.  

March 23/Meredith and half marathon

I had forgotten how long it would take to set up the computer.  I think I have recovered most of the information with the exception of my address book.  I am not sure how to go about the recovery.  I guess you could all write to me your street address via email. 

 

Yesterday my youngest daughter Meredith was in a half marathon. Mr. Radish and I went to watch her run near the end of the race.   I stood along the road with my camera at the ready and for once I thought ahead and adjusted the shutter, aperture, iso, and white balance.  I had watch literally thousands of people go by and had dropped my vigil for a moment and there she was calling to me>  In any case she seemed so happy and I think this picture reflex it. The photograph is bad, but she is happy and I put a picture there of her heading to

Las Vegas

this morning. Here are a few more of my recent photos.   

March 19/ world is out of sinc declutter

Mr. Radish and I are really grumps.  Not without some cause.  We are sort of skitzy, and it is hard to settle down.  The world seems wrong.  There are a lot of people on edge and only some people like try to verbalize. It goes without saying that the political scene is wrong headed, but I will not elaborate today.  Our bodies are being reevaluated.  That makes us cross.  Our church has a little intrigued going. , and there is nothing that is as intriguing as a Church bomb shell.  The weather is skitzy ; wind can make you irritable. We are worried about ourselves and our future, and very worried about friends. Blah, blah, blah.

 

When I am like this, I try to force myself into action.  I need control.  Man do I need some control.  I escape by going to be with friends, or buying something.  Last week I bought a  Channel lipstick when I had the almost the same color in a brush lipstick right there in my purse. 

But at times like this, the most irritating thing is my house. I came home from vacation and I walked in the door and said to myself, “Is this what I think looks acceptable?” I said to myself, you are living in an old person’s house.  All those piles of papers!  Some of the junk is from Christmas.  All these stupid houseplants sitting on my kitchen island.  And all those books everywhere, under the bed, on the desk, on all tables.  Plus everything is thick dust.  At times like this, I start to declutter, maybe some dusting.  None of the down on your knees stuff.  I kind of feel if I make my house orderly, the rest of the world will follow.  But even that is now under question.  If in fact cleaning  your plate for the children of Africa, does not actually feed those children in Africa, I guess getting all my books in order and catalogued in my bookcase will not help Congress be more sensible. I will not fix the church troubles or even our own finances. 

But maybe straightened, and dusted, my house will not smell like an old person’s home.

P.S Mr. Radish can be stated to be Kidney cancer free.  He just called to tell me.  I love you Mr. Radish.  Keep it up. 

 

 

 

 

I am looking  forward to getting my computer back this afternoon with a new hard drive.  Hopefully my pictures are still there. 

March 18/ food candy wednesday

Well we did have St.Paddy's Day last night.  It was very quiet.  I had bought a St.Patricks Day balloon, and it looks just as sad and corny as it sounds. The corned beef was great, but it did have such a high salt content that tonight is not corned beef hash night. What was superb was the cabbage.  Mashed potatoes came in a close second and the green cheese cake was hideous. 

I read food blogs and one of them is Orangette by Molly Wizenberg.  Half Jewish, her other half must be Irish as she has Irish pale skin with rosy cheeks.  Molly has just written a book of memoirs named A HOMEMADE LIFE. She tells stories about her Jewish dad and her mother, boy friends, girl friends and husband.  Then at the end of each chapter is a recipe.  Most of the recipes are for recipes you already have although different.  I just tell you all this so you do not think I invented the recipe.  Besides she is really into recipe sharing and is definitely put out with those cooks who do not share.  To her sharing is like beefing up our cooking culture. 

The recipe for our cabbage came out of her book.   I did not even follow her recipe. I had read the recipe wrong, so I needed to cook it faster than the recipe said.  Here it is.  Get a new very fresh cabbage.  Cut it into slices with the widest part being 2 inches.  In a skillet with a cover, add a bunch of butter.  When hot, put the cabbage in on its side.  When it is browned turn the bunches over with tongs, and brown it a little. Then pour whipping cream in, maybe 3/4 of a cup.  Cover this, and and simmer 20 minutes.  Turn the cabbage over (mine actually fell apart), and then let it simmer 20 minutes more.  This is where I ended the recipe, but she takes the cover off and and simmers another ten minutes. 

I could have made a meal of the cabbage.  I had not realized that Mr. Radish hates cooked cabbage, but after some cajoling he took up his fork and ate all of it, and said it was the best cooked cabbage of his life. Creamed cabbage was almost like eating dessert,  and was definitely better than the real cracked lawn green cheese cupcake dessert. 

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Because in gardening,  Martha Stewart never tells you when to get going on planting vegetables, but  shows you a story of tomatoes when it is too late to do anything about it.  Here I am telling you to plant peas and sweet peas.  Go to the nursery, they have new starts of chard, spinach and lettuce.  You will not be sorry you planted these. 
 

March 17/ St. Paddy and our changing Christianity

Happy St. Patrick's Day.  It is baked slow cooked corned beef  and smothered with BBQ sauce.  Creamed cabbage with the emphasis on cream, muffins and cupcake sized green cheese cake for dessert.  My husband will have Irish coffee.  Plus Jamison Irish Whiskey before dinner.   We have great Irish music and we will have a two person party with the above.  The music is as important to my husband as the whiskey. 

For Lent I have been doing my reading.  I wrote earlier two titles, 1) What is so great about Christianity? 2)The GREAT Emergence: How Christianity is changing and why.  Then at my sister's I watched two parts of a Focus on the Family series called the Truth Project.  I watched two long episodes, the part about science and God, and the conclusion of the series.  'These two books and the CD's are saying basically the same thing, one by a liberal,  one by a conservative group, and the third pretty impartial.  What these three vehicles have in common is that we are going through, maybe starting through a huge change in Christianity.  I can not summarize this.  There is no real consensus yet.  But one of the causes is the transformation of the world by technology, the Internet, cell phones etc. 

But all three do stress living by the Great Commandments: You shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and might, and you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you.   On this lays all the Law.

All suggest that we are coming to the place that we need to deal with the part about our neighbors. Ah yes . . . and throwing money at them is not going to be enough. This could be a sticky wicket.  Of course government could be the big player of giving out the gifts, but somehow,  I do not think this is what God has in mind. 

March 16 / home

 I am home as of yesterday afternoon.  I had a wonderful time in Florida in Palm Coast. 

Then I went to Houston to visit my sister and we had lots of fun.  However I am on my husband's computer while my computer is in the shop, so while I am here now and will be writing, the posts will be short.   Also no pictures until I get my computer back.  

Weather in Florida was great sunny and 78 degrees.  In Houston it was rainy and like Seattle when I left.   

I had the excellent time being gone.  But I see now that I am home, I am enjoying being with my own things.  I guess we need a little hiatus to see the old things in a new light.  I walked in the door and realized we had a lot of unfinished projects such as the new clock Mr. Radish got for Christmas with the box  sitting behind his chair, and parts of the new Christmas weather station are all over the house.  The pussy willows looked great when I left, but although they look the same, they are not. 

On the other hand, if I go for red wine vinegar, I can find it where it belongs.  In my washing machine I know the size load by rote. My house has the proper sunlight.  I am making the bed.  My camera stuff is all back in its places and I do not need to rip through a suitcase to find them.  I had a great time with my camera, not that I took that great of pictures, but I studied my camera and at least know how to work some buttons and dials.  That was a very satisfying aspect of the trip. 

I want to be a snowbird.  

March 2/ A challenge for a doctor.

The main thread of this post is true.  I am sure the details are not.  Yesterday we had lunch with NoName’s husband’s family.  I can not reference any of his family’s names so you will have to know that this is Mr. NoName’s sister.  She, went to medical school under the U.S. Air Force program.  After graduation she then had to do her duty in the Air Force and one of the places that she went during that time was to the Aleutian Islands.  She was the only doctor on the 3 x 4 mile island.   She had three technicians.  And I guess that there were firemen on the island who had limited medical training.  She did 30 hours of flight training every month with which ever flight group she was assigned.   Our dear doctor  was waiting for a plane to come and get her for a furlough to go to see her husband in Mississippi.  Her bags were packed.  

Perhaps some of you may remember there was an airplane  incident of  a Chinese MD11 plane coming from Beijing to Los Angeles. In-flight there was an accident.  The pilot called ahead to the island and said that he had thirty people aboard who were injured due to turbulence.  He was given permission to land.  It turns out that the co-pilot had gone to the bathroom and accidentally hit the slats, which made the airplane go down.  Down  down.  But the pilot was able to get the plane to our little 3 x4 island.

Imagine our doctor’s surprise when 230 arrived injured and one dead.   Naturally she was aghast.  Immediately she called in all forces in the Aleutians.  The first arrivals were there in two hours.  The passengers were taken to a airplane hanger and laid out on the ground.  Then all firemen and any able bodied persons were divided up in teams.  She went from person to person  saying this one has a broken leg.  Splint this.  Splint that.  This one has head injuries. Give this one blood. There was a Chinese doctor on board , but she was of no use, as she was so traumatized.  Two other passengers later died, and one pregnant woman lost a baby.  Their were a few passengers who could interpret. 

Within twelve hours all the passengers were off the island, and flown away to real hospitals on the west coast.  Our capable, darling doctor was able to take her place on her ride to Mississippi, but she did not take her seat belt off the whole way.  

Apparently there have been several novels based on this incident, and all of them include the co-pilot going to the bathroom. 

She also said that some days when she now has a bad day, she pauses ,and thinks, no, that day in the Aleutians was a bad day.