I think I have too many things to do.

As is too often the case I have one again neglected to post anything here for quite some time. Fail. The past few months have felt just insanely busy. Tis the season!

First and foremost work really really gets in the way of all of the things I really want to do. And to make matters worse my work doesn't stop at 40 hours a week. Every time we have a concert or special event there goes any "free time". The spring is definitely the worst. And just looking at the calendar May is the most ridiculous month. Between April 30 and May 25 the only non-work day is the 12th. Ouch. Although I do plan on taking a few other days off. Now if I could just get someone to do my job when I'm not in the office things would be rather more dandy.

So it whatever time is left to me I have all of the following things to do:

• House work: The cat is not pulling his weight around the house and I have to do it all. The little jerk.
• Yard work:  I think I had to start mowing a full month earlier with the weather so warm. And I've expanded my veggie garden. Here's hoping I keep more than just cucumbers alive this time.
• Friends: After years of being largely, but not entirely, anti-social it seems that I've recently managed to re-connect much more with some old friends. And I've even found new ones - whoa.
• Band: The music is kinda bad all too often, but I could never give up playing so i'm glad for the outlet.
• Video games: Bran got me hooked on World of Warcraft and now he's dragging me into Diablo as well. I try not to admit it but they can be fun. I just wish they took less time and or I could knit and play!
• Biking: Exercise is healthy and can even be fun, I should do more of it.
• Photography: My photos really are getting better I think. But as with all learning/improvement more time is always a sure way to better results.
• Reading: I really don't know how I did it but as a youth I would fly through books sometimes to the tune of multiple books in a week. I've been doing a bit more lately but sometimes it feels like I'm just slogging through them. And the library deadlines come up so quickly!
• Knitting/Crochet: Aside from the perpetual desire to be working on dozens of projects of my own I even have the opportunity right now to work on growing a bit of my own crafty business. Maybe I should learn lever knitting or whatever the supposed current fastest knitting method may be.
• Spinning: I am totally getting better at spinning. Latest discover is an awesome DKish single. Knit up so wonderfully.
• Other Crafts: My awesome sewing machine is practically begging me to use it more often. And wouldn't it be wonderful to work at sketching/doodling/zentangling. Oh and what about the sweatshirt that I've wanted to paint for myself for over a year.
• Relax: Eh, overrated!

Garden

Two years ago I had some success with my container gardens on our back porch. Last year I considered my container gardening and even some regular (flower) gardening to be quite awesome. This year I have no porch on which to put out containers. I am sad :-(

What I do however have is three smallish window boxes. And as they get some decent light all is not lost.

Originally I saw the brackets on the windows and anticipated that I would buy my own window boxes and fill 'em up. But after talking with my landlady turns out they had dirt filled boxes already. She said that typically she plants them and then asks the tenant to water as they are on a second floor so all but impossible to water from the ground. Then inevitably the flowers would die and it'd be a pity.

My plan: I love flowers and think that petunias are a summer must. And for a window box they are perfect. But I also have loved my success with vegetable growing. To balance everything out I've planted pink petunias on the sides of each box. And I've researched what veggies grow in a small box. I really wanted to do some peas which they say would be fine. The idea of a trellis balanced against the window/house with the peas growing up it is so much fun. But then I realized that the things grow quite tall and the fruit is at the top and I'd be trying to stand up while hanging out my window to pick snap peas. Not the best idea ever. So after visiting Lowes and getting some cheap seed so far I've planted two types of lettuce: Romaine and something I'm hoping is a loose leaf variety, Spinach, and Radishes. I still have plenty of space so I'd like to find some scallions and would be delighted with other options. But it will also work just as well to start more seed in 2 weeks or in hopes of a rotating harvest.

Or (typing this out has my brain growing) I really ought to just start up a mini indoor greenhouse. I can use plastic cups and grow seedlings that can be swapped out. This will enable me to have more usable space. Yup...I'm nuts.

Lastly I really really really want to have a tomato plant. My tomato plants have been my new favorite thing. As a slowly reforming picky-eater the discovery of tomato's as a delicious summer treat fresh from the garden is somewhat surprising. But last summer BLT's were pretty much the most awesome thing ever. So I'm quite set on getting one of those upside down plant hanger things and planting me a tomato plant inside (probably actually in the enclosed stair case) where I have a nice south facing window. It could be a most dreadful idea. Or it could work. Fingers crossed that it will rock :-)

A string quartet without violins.

My garden this year is pretty awesome. In my humble opinion of course. Yesterday using homegrown tomatoes I made homemade tomato sauce.

Whoa.

The non-cooking type person that I am, and having grown up with busy parents who had to suffer from having two picky little girls to feed, I view tomato sauce as something which comes from a jar. Homemade is just much too advanced.

Last year however I helped J (former roommate, still landlord, friend, person whose description is as convoluted as everything else that I describe in my life) make ginormouse (that’s giant and enormous as one word) batches of tomato sauce from an old family recipe. So there was that. But I still didn’t view it as something that one does for any old meal.

Then I had a bunch of tomatoes from my garden and was determined to consume them somehow. First I used one in a recipe for avocado chicken salad (quite good but definitely scale back the scallions) that I found on Cheap Healthy Good. This left me with 5 tomatoes.


My entirely non-creative thought was, obviously, tomato sauce. I turned to Alton Brown because his show Good Eats with all of the sciency stuff involved is great. Then I did more or less whatever I wanted anyway using the recipe as a rough guide.



Really it was quite simple. I chopped the tomatoes, put a bunch of stuff on them, roasted them for like 2 hours, hunted down my foley mill, ran the tomatoes through, and voila I had tomato sauce!

w00t

"A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins."