The weather forecast predicted a high in the upper 70s over this past weekend, something for Portlanders to get excited about and cause to start making plans to be outside all day. I had ordered some tomato starts to be delivered in the beginning of April, and while I received them at their promised date, they have been relegated to living in our garden window until the weather was more appropriate for putting them in their permanent home outside. In the meantime, I have watched them inch ever higher and waiting impatiently for the day when they will start producing. Luckily I’ve had other things in the garden to be focusing my attention on to abate my “limited tomato based thinking”. While Hubby ran around mowing the lawn and other important yard tasks I took advantage of the warm weather and decided that my tomato plants would be able to survive outside now that the lows are hovering around fifty degrees.
Toward the end of March I planted four Oregon Snow Pea seeds in the hopes that one would sprout and produce snow peas for us to enjoy through the season. Much to my happy surprise all four sprouted and have been growing ever skyward. Noticing that they were starting to climb on one another I improvised a trellis with a tomato cage that wouldn’t come to use for a little while and strung some gardener’s twine diagonally between the bars to give the peas something else for their little tendrils to wrap around. When ShoeDiva came over to help me pull weeds on Saturday, she was shocked at the growth of the snow peas in the month since she had last seen them. Truth be told, I’m a little amazed at how quickly they’re growing too. But seeing as neither of us has really had any experience with veggie gardening our surprise should be no surprise.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The Guilty Conscience Strikes Again
I’ve written about this before – but I think it is a common topic among writers – finding inspiration. I have been so busy traveling for work lately that I have all but forgotten about my blogging duties. That could be just an excuse, but I’ll never tell if it is or not. Technically, I’m already doing better about my blogging consistency than I was last year and that is probably a good thing. I think I have subconsciously committed myself to posting to my blog at least once a week whether it’s a second hand article or I’m just “phoning it in”, and when I don’t I feel guilty. So I suppose that’s where blogs like this come in.
On my commute to work this morning I spent some time on the MAX thinking about what I should blog about next. I don’t want my posts to be too garden-centric, so I ruled that out. I don’t want to post about work or traveling for work, although that may come up at a later date, I’m tired of thinking about it right now. But again I come back to feeling like I’m writing for an audience and not for myself. In reality I should just be writing about whatever I want to write about and not what I think people might want to read. So, I guess ultimately this blog post is just going to be two things: me feeling guilty for not posting, and me not knowing what to write. Maybe I should just take the advice of my college professors and all of those years of participating in NaNoWirMo and just sit down with the intention to write and something will be produced. Lovely, I’m sure that will be incredibly entertaining.
I don’t know if anyone that I don’t know is reading this or not, but if you are reading this and would like me to write about something feel free to leave a comment. Cheers!
On my commute to work this morning I spent some time on the MAX thinking about what I should blog about next. I don’t want my posts to be too garden-centric, so I ruled that out. I don’t want to post about work or traveling for work, although that may come up at a later date, I’m tired of thinking about it right now. But again I come back to feeling like I’m writing for an audience and not for myself. In reality I should just be writing about whatever I want to write about and not what I think people might want to read. So, I guess ultimately this blog post is just going to be two things: me feeling guilty for not posting, and me not knowing what to write. Maybe I should just take the advice of my college professors and all of those years of participating in NaNoWirMo and just sit down with the intention to write and something will be produced. Lovely, I’m sure that will be incredibly entertaining.
I don’t know if anyone that I don’t know is reading this or not, but if you are reading this and would like me to write about something feel free to leave a comment. Cheers!
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Eat the View: Part 3, In “The Word Garden”
The time of year that I have been anxiously waiting for since our first cold day of fall has finally arrived. Spring! Sadly the turning of the season of new life doesn’t necessarily mean that I can start putting my veggies in the ground just yet. I have been reading gardening blogs of people who live in a warmer climate and drooling over my garden’s potential – dreaming of the day when I can actually transplant my tomato starts in to the raised planter bed that Hubby and I built with the help of CodeMonkey and his lovely wife LadyNurse. Alas, it is still too cold and if I prematurely put the plants out it could damage them. So, the tomato starts have taken up residence in my kitchen window along with the basil, sage, oregano and marjoram starts. The snow peas I planted outside in a 5 gallon pot over a month ago seem to be growing quite happily in this cold weather. I am regretting, though, not having staggered planting them because now we will have an abundance of the peas all at once. Looks like I will be learning how to freeze fresh produce.
This is my first edible garden, and I would like to think that I’m taking it slowly and not getting too excited but it is hard to judge my level of excitement until I get to the “uh oh, I may have done too much” point. By the way, I am nowhere near that point yet. Once we get fully in to the swing of growing season it is likely that that is when I will look at my over abundance of crops and wonder what the heck I was thinking. In the mean time, I’m enjoying watching little sprouts pop up in the starter pots in my kitchen window and imagining the fun meals I can produce with them when the time comes.
If you would like to read my previous posts on the subject see: Part One, and Part Two
This is my first edible garden, and I would like to think that I’m taking it slowly and not getting too excited but it is hard to judge my level of excitement until I get to the “uh oh, I may have done too much” point. By the way, I am nowhere near that point yet. Once we get fully in to the swing of growing season it is likely that that is when I will look at my over abundance of crops and wonder what the heck I was thinking. In the mean time, I’m enjoying watching little sprouts pop up in the starter pots in my kitchen window and imagining the fun meals I can produce with them when the time comes.
If you would like to read my previous posts on the subject see: Part One, and Part Two
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
April is National Poetry Month
Dr. Maya Angelou said: “Poetry is music written for the human voice.” April is National Poetry Month and was first celebrated in 1996. It was created to promote attention to the literary form and history of poetry. How can you celebrate National Poetry Month? The Academy of American Poets has a list of thirty ways to celebrate poetry in April:
Read a poem a day – books of poetry can be found at your local library, or there are websites dedicated to poetry by certain authors or on certain subjects. One of my favorites is “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.
Write a poem of your own – use free verse, make a haiku, write a sonnet, the style doesn’t matter just the attempt. Writing a poem is not as complicated as some people might think, the most important part is being uninhibited and turning off your internal editor. Just write everything that comes to mind, you can edit it later. Choose a style of poetry that fits your subject, research rhyme scheme and meter standards to find out if your poem is a Couplet, Villanelle, or Shakespearian Sonnet.
Add a verse of poetry to your personal email signature – if you stumble across a line you enjoy while reading, share it with others. Make it short and to the point, and always site the source of the line.
Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day – on April 17, 2009 carry a poem in your pocket and share it as you see fit with those around you.
Kay Ryan, the current Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2008-2009, said: "Poems are transmissions from the depths of whoever wrote them to the depths of the reader. To a greater extent than with any other kind of reading, the reader of a poem is making that poem, is inhabiting those words in the most personal sort of way. That doesn’t mean that you read a poem and make it whatever you want it to be, but that it’s operating so deeply in you, that it is the most special kind of reading."
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
27 Years, and All I Got Was This T-shirt
One of my coworkers pointed out today that now that I am at the ripe old age of 27, my age is a cubed number. He’s in the accounting department, and has a love for numbers, that’s all I need to say to explain that.
It’s strange to think that at 12:35am this morning I changed from being 26 to 27. You always hear people say things like “You’re only as old as you feel,” or “Age is just a number,” and even “Act your age, not your shoe size.” All are relative truisms, but I think I have come to mark my life more by events than by my age. A quote from the character Leonard in the show Big Bang Theory rings true to me: “My parents focused on celebrating achievements, and being expelled from a birth canal was not considered one of them.” It couldn’t have felt truer than it did a few weeks ago when I found out that a job I was hoping would be created was not opened due to budget constraints. This event sent me into a swirl of self doubt and to revisit my quarter-life-crisis stage. My first, and returning, thought was “I’m going to be 27, and a receptionist. I thought I would be doing more than that by now.” The thought that I should be doing something else haunts me frequently. It has haunted me since six months after I graduated from college.
All those thoughts disappeared though after I took a minute to reflect on my current position. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people in this country alone that have found themselves without a job because of the recession. So, first I count my blessings that I have a job. Second, I have a good paying job with benefits. Third, and not the least of all, I actually enjoy my job. Yeah it’s not the most thrilling thing and not what I thought I would be doing but there’s something to be said for enjoying your job. I have always told myself to get a job doing work I enjoy and everything else will follow. I’d have to so that the only bad part about this job is the commute.
Here’s to another year, and more achievements to come.
It’s strange to think that at 12:35am this morning I changed from being 26 to 27. You always hear people say things like “You’re only as old as you feel,” or “Age is just a number,” and even “Act your age, not your shoe size.” All are relative truisms, but I think I have come to mark my life more by events than by my age. A quote from the character Leonard in the show Big Bang Theory rings true to me: “My parents focused on celebrating achievements, and being expelled from a birth canal was not considered one of them.” It couldn’t have felt truer than it did a few weeks ago when I found out that a job I was hoping would be created was not opened due to budget constraints. This event sent me into a swirl of self doubt and to revisit my quarter-life-crisis stage. My first, and returning, thought was “I’m going to be 27, and a receptionist. I thought I would be doing more than that by now.” The thought that I should be doing something else haunts me frequently. It has haunted me since six months after I graduated from college.
All those thoughts disappeared though after I took a minute to reflect on my current position. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people in this country alone that have found themselves without a job because of the recession. So, first I count my blessings that I have a job. Second, I have a good paying job with benefits. Third, and not the least of all, I actually enjoy my job. Yeah it’s not the most thrilling thing and not what I thought I would be doing but there’s something to be said for enjoying your job. I have always told myself to get a job doing work I enjoy and everything else will follow. I’d have to so that the only bad part about this job is the commute.
Here’s to another year, and more achievements to come.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Five U.S. Presidents You May Have Forgotten
Another article I wrote for my company letter, was going to post it on Presidents' Day but you know how these things go...
Traditionally, Presidents’ Day (February 16) is a federal holiday honoring our nation’s fist president, George Washington, and our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. This month, we would like to honor five lesser-known presidents.
William Henry Harrison, 9th US President. His term (March 4, 1841 – April 4, 1841) was the shortest of any US president, only serving the office officially for a little over 30 days before he died of pneumonia. His untimely death, the first death of a US President in office, brought about the 25th Amendment to the Constitution detailing the succession of the US President.
Millard Fillmore, 13th US President, was the second Vice President to take office after the death of the elected president. The most notable accomplishment during his term (July 9, 1850 – March 4, 1853) was having California signed in to statehood – a process begun by his predecessor.
James Buchanan, 15th US President, has been ranked by most historians as one of the worst presidents. During his term (March 4, 1857 – March 4, 1861) the Southern states declared their secession but Buchanan declared the action illegal and remained inactive on the topic. Failure to avoid the Civil War has been considered the worst single failure by any U.S. president.
Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th US President, was sworn in to office after winning the election with a mere one electoral vote over his opponent. His term (March 4, 1877 – March 4, 1881) was marred by indecision and conflict including the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 which ended in the death of 70 striking Baltimore & Ohio Railroad employees.
Calvin Coolidge, 30th US President, was dubbed “Silent Cal” for being a man of few words in social situations. He completed Harding’s term as president and then was elected to office in his own right serving as president for a term and a half (August 2, 1923 – March 4, 1929). Coolidge signed the Radio Act of 1927 which regulated radio use in the U.S. until the formation of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1934.
Traditionally, Presidents’ Day (February 16) is a federal holiday honoring our nation’s fist president, George Washington, and our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. This month, we would like to honor five lesser-known presidents.
William Henry Harrison, 9th US President. His term (March 4, 1841 – April 4, 1841) was the shortest of any US president, only serving the office officially for a little over 30 days before he died of pneumonia. His untimely death, the first death of a US President in office, brought about the 25th Amendment to the Constitution detailing the succession of the US President.
Millard Fillmore, 13th US President, was the second Vice President to take office after the death of the elected president. The most notable accomplishment during his term (July 9, 1850 – March 4, 1853) was having California signed in to statehood – a process begun by his predecessor.
James Buchanan, 15th US President, has been ranked by most historians as one of the worst presidents. During his term (March 4, 1857 – March 4, 1861) the Southern states declared their secession but Buchanan declared the action illegal and remained inactive on the topic. Failure to avoid the Civil War has been considered the worst single failure by any U.S. president.
Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th US President, was sworn in to office after winning the election with a mere one electoral vote over his opponent. His term (March 4, 1877 – March 4, 1881) was marred by indecision and conflict including the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 which ended in the death of 70 striking Baltimore & Ohio Railroad employees.
Calvin Coolidge, 30th US President, was dubbed “Silent Cal” for being a man of few words in social situations. He completed Harding’s term as president and then was elected to office in his own right serving as president for a term and a half (August 2, 1923 – March 4, 1929). Coolidge signed the Radio Act of 1927 which regulated radio use in the U.S. until the formation of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1934.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Five Interesting Firsts
I originally wrote this article for my company newsletter, and thought I would post it for others to read as well.
February is Black History Month and typically a time when we reflect upon and appreciate African-Americans that have made an impact on American history. We all know the names Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama. Who are some of the lesser-known African-American history-makers?
First published African-American writer in America – Jupiter Hammon (1711 – 1806?) was a lifelong slave on Long Island, New York who was given a formal eduation and is considered one of the founders of African-American literature. He was deeply religious and his poem “An Evening Thought,” was published in 1760 as a broadside and noted as the first published writing by an African-American in the U.S.
First African-American Lawyer – Macon Bolling Allen (1816 – 1894) was a self-taught lawyer who was accepted to the bar in Portland, Maine is 1844. Soon after that he was admitted to the bar in Boston and became the first African American Justice of the Peace. Allen moved to South Carolina during the American Civil war where he felt his skills as an abolitionist lawyer could be of use.
First African-American Olympic Gold Medal Winner – At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, track and field athlete John Baxter Taylor, Jr. (1882 – 1908) earned a gold medal for his part in the U.S. medley relay team. Taylor ran the third leg of the medley race, running 400 meters in 49.8 seconds.
First African-American Woman Elected to Congress – Shirley Chisholm (1924 – 2005) was elected to New York’s Twelfth District congressional seat in the House of Representatives in 1968. In 1972 she became the first major party African-American candidate, and the first woman to run for president.
First African-American to reach the peak of Mount Everest – In 2006 Sophia Danenberg (1972 - ) was the first African-American to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. She suffered many ailments during her climb and bad weather conditions held back the other members of her climbing party. She and her sherpas were the only climbers to witness the event.
February is Black History Month and typically a time when we reflect upon and appreciate African-Americans that have made an impact on American history. We all know the names Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama. Who are some of the lesser-known African-American history-makers?
First published African-American writer in America – Jupiter Hammon (1711 – 1806?) was a lifelong slave on Long Island, New York who was given a formal eduation and is considered one of the founders of African-American literature. He was deeply religious and his poem “An Evening Thought,” was published in 1760 as a broadside and noted as the first published writing by an African-American in the U.S.
First African-American Lawyer – Macon Bolling Allen (1816 – 1894) was a self-taught lawyer who was accepted to the bar in Portland, Maine is 1844. Soon after that he was admitted to the bar in Boston and became the first African American Justice of the Peace. Allen moved to South Carolina during the American Civil war where he felt his skills as an abolitionist lawyer could be of use.
First African-American Olympic Gold Medal Winner – At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, track and field athlete John Baxter Taylor, Jr. (1882 – 1908) earned a gold medal for his part in the U.S. medley relay team. Taylor ran the third leg of the medley race, running 400 meters in 49.8 seconds.
First African-American Woman Elected to Congress – Shirley Chisholm (1924 – 2005) was elected to New York’s Twelfth District congressional seat in the House of Representatives in 1968. In 1972 she became the first major party African-American candidate, and the first woman to run for president.
First African-American to reach the peak of Mount Everest – In 2006 Sophia Danenberg (1972 - ) was the first African-American to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. She suffered many ailments during her climb and bad weather conditions held back the other members of her climbing party. She and her sherpas were the only climbers to witness the event.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Eat the View: Part 2
Almost a month ago I posted a video called “This Lawn is Your Lawn”. The video is about the initiative to have the front lawn of the White House be partially converted to a vegetable garden to fill the first kitchen. The movement has been dubbed Victory Garden 2.0 after Eleanor Roosevelt’s WWII era Victory Garden at the White House. I think this is a magnificent idea, and one that Obama should take to heart when he has a moment. I really do believe that if he takes the lead it could have a profound impact on our country in ways we may not be able to calculate. We can’t exactly expect the leader of the free world to focus on something that we find important – then it comes back to us to stand up to do it ourselves.
Around the time that I posted that video Hubby and I had dinner with the Married Couple Collective (MCC) and found that many of us felt the same way about growing our own produce to the extent that we can. The other two wives and I chatted and found that they already had a plan laid out, if not planting beds already built, so they were already ready for planting when the time comes this year. Hubby and I on the other hand, don’t have much in the yard.
When we moved in to this house last year there wasn’t much in the yard but grass and a tree in the back. Last Spring/Summer my main goal was to beautify. We planted three rose bushes, cleaned out some weeds, purchased a lawn mower, and this fall I planted some bulbs. The plan for this season: build planter boxes and grow some veggies for ourselves. The great thing about this plan and the conversation with the MCC, is a built in growing community. We’ve worked out a seed-share program between the three couples to share the packets of seeds that we order.
Really it’s not much. It is just a little bit to provide for me and Hubby, perhaps even share any over abundance I have with others – but my reduced demand in the grocery store might just translate to something larger than I can conceive. I like that.
Around the time that I posted that video Hubby and I had dinner with the Married Couple Collective (MCC) and found that many of us felt the same way about growing our own produce to the extent that we can. The other two wives and I chatted and found that they already had a plan laid out, if not planting beds already built, so they were already ready for planting when the time comes this year. Hubby and I on the other hand, don’t have much in the yard.
When we moved in to this house last year there wasn’t much in the yard but grass and a tree in the back. Last Spring/Summer my main goal was to beautify. We planted three rose bushes, cleaned out some weeds, purchased a lawn mower, and this fall I planted some bulbs. The plan for this season: build planter boxes and grow some veggies for ourselves. The great thing about this plan and the conversation with the MCC, is a built in growing community. We’ve worked out a seed-share program between the three couples to share the packets of seeds that we order.
Really it’s not much. It is just a little bit to provide for me and Hubby, perhaps even share any over abundance I have with others – but my reduced demand in the grocery store might just translate to something larger than I can conceive. I like that.
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