I'm Practically A Founding Father. Or Mother.

Today I had jury duty.

Booooooo, right?

Nope, it was awesome!

I showed up at 8 am for my one day.  The room was warm and spacious, with comfy chairs

and a panoramic window showing us the storm right outside.

First, a judge showed up in his suit and red bow tie:

Nooooo... not that guy!  A grown-up judge guy in a red bow tie!

He gave a short speech that simultaneously reassured us we were in for an easy day,

and praised us for being Super-Patriots who should be proud of 

 doing our civic duty.

THANKS, JUDGE GUY!

Next, a red-haired woman went to the podium to give us an orientation speech.

 Well, she didn't have Joan's figure, but she certainly had her sass.

We laughed as she gave us the needed info in a sly, snarky way, and

we also thought a collective "Buuuuuuurn..." when she coolly asked the owner

of a ringing cell phone, "Do you need to get that?"

(Joan would have been proud.) 

What next?

VACATION BEACH TIME!

Well, not literally.  But we just needed to hang close, so I busted out my newspaper 

and book, and spent a pleasant morning reading, reading, reading, which I usually only get to do on a weekday morning when I'm on vacation, sprawled on a beach blanket.

And how much time did we get for our lunch break?

NINETY FULL MINUTES!

Ooh la la, am I in France?

I get a scant 25 minutes at work, sometimes less.

After having time to not only get a Chipotle salad bowl

but also go for a nice long walk in the rain, I headed back for more reading

and a bit of check balancing. 

Done with my chore, I decided to reward myself with a trip to the vending machine:

I don't know the last time I had one of these.

They were, as I remembered, DELICIOUS.

By now it was 3 pm.  

Joan-Adjacent asked us all to return to the room, where we nervously waited to 

be called to a panel.  (Sort of a preliminary for being called on a case.)

But, no! 


We
were

FREEEEEE!!!!

We tossed our badges in the baskets,

grabbed our "Get Out Of Jury Duty For One Year" paperwork

and we were GONE!!

All in all, it was a fine way to spend Friday the 13th.

Good Luck Stormin' The (Plant) Castle!

Since my front yard has the best light, 

last year I took over the strip beside the driveway for my fledgling veggie garden.

It did... only okay... but despite my failures I had been bit by the veggie gardening bug,

and I was determined to expand my garden this year.

Last year, I had just plunked a bunch of big pots on top of the grass,

and then later tried to smother the grass with landscape fabric and bark.

Not terrible, but kinda messy looking, right?  And not in a charming way.

So THIS summer, I decided to replace some of those pots with a nice raised bed.

After a whole lot of poking around Pinterest, I decided on using stone retaining blocks.
They don't need any mortar, and the lip at the back keeps them in place.

I made a rough estimate of how many I needed, and then took my envelope of Etsy profits

over to Home Depot.

A worker loaded up a hundred blocks on a pallet, and brought them to my Element.

I knelt in the back, and two employees helped me load.

While I was doing this, a guy came up to ask one of the employees a question about his gardenias; I continued loading until he squinted at me and asked,

"How many of those are you planning to put in the back, there?"

"A hundred."

"Well, I gotta tell you, I'm in construction, and I wouldn't put that many

in the back of my truck."

(At this point, I started listening with both my earholes, since truck commercials have convinced me that you could load the Washington Monument in the back with no problem.)

And then he went on using scary words like "axel" and "bow" and "snap,"

and I decided to stop right there at 75 blocks and come back for the other 25 later.

I got in my car and putt-putt-putted away in the parking lot at about four miles an hour,

then slowly circled back when I became convinced I was hearing the sound

of my car breaking.

The two employees were still standing there, watching my turtle-like circuit.

They helped me unload 25 of the blocks we just loaded, and I  headed home with
only 50 weighing down the back of my car. 
I returned later for the other 50, and called it a day.


DAY TWO:


Since I'm a crazy person, I decided it was NO PROBLEM to build my first

raised retaining wall bed on a sloping site:

And it didn't just slope east to west; it also sloped north to south.
But I'm stubborn  determined, so I laid out a rope in the design I wanted...

And then laid the blocks around the rope.

Now it was the TRICKY PART.


I got the level and tried to make the first block level,
and then the SECOND block level with it.

(Btw, my favorite "crazy" metaphor?  My dad calling someone "half-bubble off plumb.")


When it came to the second and third block, I had to dig a hole deeper and deeper so that the blocks would be level with the preceding block.
I scratched away with my gardening trowel, and after waaaaay too much time,
realized I needed some advice.


Off to the Internets!


I found these instructions, and this image:

Isn't it beautiful?  SPOILER ALERT:  Mine's not going to look like that.


But I got some info, and realized I was supposed to be putting gravel
all along the bottom (a step I skipped)
and digging one long trench (a step that made my construction easier.)

After getting some blocks in line, I realized what the trick to this whole slope was going to be:
digging the trench progressively deeper, using the level to keep things well, level,
until the block was completely level with the ground.
THEN, I needed to put gravel next to the ground-level block,

and place a block ON TOP of the last block and the gravel.
You can probably see it better here:

That bottom block on the right should have been over more, shouldn't it? 
So its left edge was in the middle of the bottom right block.


It's not, for a reason, which I'll write about later on.


Anyhoo, I just kept stacking and digging, digging and stacking, until I had the bottom row.

But, uh oh!  I couldn't get the bottom edges to come out just right.

I was coming to the bottom left corner both clockwise and counter-clockwise,

and two blocks were too few to fill the gap, and three blocks were too many.

So I got creative, and just flipped one of the blocks around:

(You're probably wondering what that black fabric-y stuff is. 
I'll write about it in my next entry.)


I kept stacking and stacking, and flipping around blocks as needed.

But soon I realized a Math Truth:


Since each row is set back about an inch,
each row is going to be a little smaller.


Which meant each row needed a leeetle less blocks than the one above it.
And just flipping around a block wouldn't work every time.
Also, since each row is set back,
turning corners would get my carefully aligned blocks off a little.


A search of the Internets told me that carefully chiseling an inch or so
off EACH BLOCK for each new row would solve this problem.


Uh, NO.


Not going to do that.
Instead, I just settled for a less-than-perfect retaining wall bed.

It still looked pretty good, no?
Show us your better side, raised bed!

I figure I'll just plant stuff that spills along the edges, so the little dips won't be so obvious.

What's Going On In My Greenhouse?

It's Friday, and I have the day off!

What's on my To Do list?

First, I need to take everything out from under my 

kitchen sink, and try to figure out where the water drips are coming from.

Oh, hideous kitchen tile.  You WILL be a future demolition project.

Next, I need to bury the poor roadkill bunny from in front of my house.

RIP, little bunny.

I'm sorry people up the street drive so fast.

For something a little cheerier, I need to check how many people

are reblogging and liking my Philly Justice Confessions submission:

This... is a hard one to explain.  How about you just head over to Hulu

and let the hilarious Amy Poehler do the story (Philly) justice?

Now, it's time to head upstairs and scope out my seedlings.

As I detailed in my last post,

I'm experimenting with different containers for starting seeds.

But before I check out my baby plants, why don't I take a look at the wooden spatula

I use to stir my potting soil?

***  Cue ominous music***

Wait... what?  What is that fuzzy white stuff all over my spatula?!?

I'm sure it's nothing... nothing...  it's just moldy because

it's been closed up in a container with damp potting soil.

*** ominous music gets louder***

Now, how are the seedlings doing?

  

*

*

*

Lookin' good, Sungold tomatoes!  You're getting your second set of leaves!

Standing tall, sunflowers!  You're off to a great start!

Whoa, zucchinis!  You are bustin' out of your peat pot!

Hey, basil and marigolds!  You're....

*** ominous music hits a screeching crescendo***

WHAT IS GOING ON, NEWSPAPER POTS?!

Do you see that? Do you see that yellow and white funk all over the outside of the pots?

It's on the surface of the soil, too!

What kind of cooties are on my pots?!?

Some quick Googling explains that I have MOLD because my pots are too damp.

ME!  Over-watering!!!

I just got bit in the booty by the Hubris Fairy.  I confidently wrote in 

my last post that I didn't need drainage holes in my pots, 

since I've never killed a plant with over-watering.

SO.

I'm going to try again.  I promised my Sweet Man I would try to save 

some of the baby plants, and I'll re-sow some more seeds.

For the sake of Science, I'm going to use both new newspaper pots, 

and some little Dixie cups.

AND... I'm going to poke a hole in the bottom of those Dixie cups.

Let's Get This (Planting) Party Started!

As I detailed in this post, I have an enthusiastic,

but not green thumb.

However, I try to learn from my mistakes,

and wanted to try once more to fill my garden with edibles.

I was going to do what I had done last year -- attach a fluorescent shop light

to two sawhorses,

and then...

via Pinterest...

I saw this:

It's... it's... BEAUTIFUL.  And simple.  And space saving.

I HAD TO DO IT.

It was easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy to put together wire shelves, attach lights,

and set the whole thing up in the Girl's unused bedroom.  (She's away at college.)

Then, it was time for the fun part:

starting the seeds!

I had... a few...

So I gathered my containers:

my potting soil:

... and got planting!

Last year, I had a lot of success with yogurt containers.

I started a bunch of tomato plants and basil plants in them, and they worked out well.

The only problem is, they're round, and so they don't fit as nicely in 

the cardboard cat food trays as I would like.

So this year, I thought I'd try something else, too.

I had a LOT of rectangular feta cheese containers:

I put seeds at both ends, so I figure I could get at least two plants out of each container.

Do you know what I didn't put in either of these containers, though?

HOLES.

Yup, I'm livin' on the edge.  I've never over-watered a plant,

but I've certainly lost them to under-watering. I just put nice, moist potting soil

in the containers, and water them when the top dries out.  It worked pretty well last year.

Left over from last year were these peat pots I bought and didn't have much success with.

I think I tried... carrots? in them last year?  But they didn't work.  They kept drying out.

This year, I'm placing them in an empty plastic container, to keep them moister.

Also, I used them for the zucchini seeds.  I guess zucchini is supposed to be direct-sown,

but since my gardening area isn't ready yet, I figured this would be the next best thing.

Something cool I'm trying this year is this:

It's this nifty little wooden gadget that makes newspaper pots to start seedlings.

I got it for the Girl off of Etsy last year, but sadly the buyer is no longer there.

You can find more of them on the Wide Wide World of Web, though.


ETA:  Check out my next post to see how these newspaper pots are faring.

Last year, the Girl and I tried these on a sunny windowsill and outside, but they didn't work.

I'm hoping that cramming them all together inside under the lights will keep them moist

and ready to grow:

What's the plan when these get bigger?

I'll transplant some, use the plastic containers that I used for the zucchini peat pots for others, and I'll also use these:

 They're free, and a great size for the tomato plants!

Btw, what didn't I use?

Egg cartons:

I tried those last year, with no success.  Maybe they'd work better inside,

but there's about a tablespoon of potting soil in each cup!

They dry out so quickly!  The poster did fine, so, y'know, it could just be me.

There you go.  Wish me luck with my new plantings!

Bringing Something New To The Party

I've seen a gazillion posts on Pinterest on how to DIY screenprinting.

Some people use the actual screenprinting materials, but in a little frame.

Some use Mod Podge and wooden embroidery hoops.

Others, use contact paper as the "resist."

I put all those ideas in a blender, and came up with this:

I use some screenprinting paint I had, a screenprinting squeegie,

contact paper for the resist, sheer "curtain" fabric off the big bolts at Joann's, and my

Q-Snap quilting/embroidery hoop!

The beauty of using the Q-Snap is that I could get the fabric really nice and taut,

and when I was done, I could take out the fabric and do another design.

I didn't have to worry about storing a bunch of frames.

Also, my Q-Snap is huuuuge -- a full 16 inches across.

I could do some really big images with it.

The results?

Matching screenprinted t-shirts for the midnight showing of Hunger Games!

Figure It Out ONCE

It's spring break, so what does that mean?

Long days at the beach?

Mornings with tea and a book?

Afternoons at the mall?

Nope, it's...

HOME RENOVATION TIME!

The guy who flipped our house before we bought it, bless his heart,

evidently dealt with a hoarder-type situation. 

I appreciate the mountains of STUFF he cleared out,

but what I DON'T appreciate is that he used the cheapest materials to spiff up the place.

So slowly and methodically, room by room,

I've been using my Etsy money to brighten and liven the house.

I keep cost down by either doing the labor myself or

with the help of my amateur labor force, the Boy...

(It's handy having someone tall enough to get the top of the walls, without a stepladder.)

... and the Girl:

(Here she is, post - "Pi-VOT!" moment with the Boy's bed.)

Speaking of the Boy...this break, it was time to tackle his room:

Ugh.  Look at that sad carpet, those dirty white walls.  

It's not his fault:  like I said, the paint and carpeting were cheap, cheap, cheap,

so it doesn't clean easily.

But, look!

What a pretty color for the walls!  What a lovely, clean-looking laminate floor!

The Boy emptied most of his room in one day,

and the next the Girl and I took up the carpet, painted the walls,

and re-floored with a nice vinyl laminate.

(I'm not getting paid by the Allure people; I just really like their stuff.)

And what was the handiest tool for this renovation?

THIS BOOK:

Since my renovations are spread out,

I don't always remember details from each one.

So a few projects back I began this composition book.  Each renovation has an entry,

and each entry has very specific notes on what I learned.

For example, I had noted that old spools are perfect for painting baseboards.

 Unfortunately, I hadn't written down that the heavy tile scraper

was the way to remove those awful carpet nail strips, and I didn't remember

until after I'd slowly hacked and splintered a few with a screwdriver and chisel.

 

But I've made a note in my journal, so next time I'll be slicing away at those strips

from the very beginning!