I saw someone recently write they used green goddess salad dressing on St. Patrick’s day, so the name is stuck in my mind.

Plus, I could use some help from up above – be it goddess, angel, or Dad smiling down on me.  Spike the cat just tumbled my newly planted tomatoes down 3 shelves and after I cleaned up the mess I immediately felt the urge to write about my little balcony garden before it is all gone.

I have always loved the idea of a garden.  But in my dream, a garden meant plots of soil in a big backyard.  And of course that’s what I had growing up.  I wish now I had paid more attention to what my Dad did with soil and plants.  But he more enjoyed growing things for ornamental reasons.  His fruits and vegetables were always extras.

In my plan for this year to be more earth-friendly, more down-home, less store-bought, I decided I wanted to grow a little of what we ate right here at home.  In this 1,000 sq. ft condo.  With 4 cats and a dog.

I did some research on both container gardening and Florida gardening.  While many northerns bemoan the short growing season, I was concerned that my plants would dry into little sticks before they flowered, never mind fruited.

And I had a reason to be worried.  (FORESHADOWING)

I settled on growing lettuce, tomatoes (both cherry and regular), peppers, eggplant, basil, and oregano.  Basil and tomatoes are notoriously easy to grow.  Eggplant and peppers are both items I will throw into just about whatever I’m cooking.  And I like salads.

I choose oregano because I felt like I should grow another herb and couldn’t think of a better one.  (Next year, I’m thinking rosemary or dill.  Rosemary goes great with chicken, which we eat a lot.  And dill is an herb you almost never want to use dried.)

For my containers, I chose a mix of regular planters and hanging planters.  I was intrigued by hanging bags found at Park Seed.  They are about 3 feet long with 6 holes for plants to grow out of.  I think I can use two back-to-back on a hook to stabilize each other.  Nothing I want to put in them (the lettuce, peppers, and herbs) is ready to transplant out of their growing pots, so that’s all theory right now.

My regular tomatoes are all in one big regular planter.  The cherry tomatoes are in a regular hanging basket.

And true to their word, the tomatoes have been a breeze.  At 6-8 inches, I transplanted today.  Well, planted further I suppose.  I went with peat degradable starter pots for all my seeds.  I found some trays on sale for $1 at Walmart, a $13 plastic shelf, and some $16 plastic fencing at Lowe’s.  The trays have been crucial in keeping everything well-watered as the temperature has climbed.

Placed on the plastic shelves in a corner of the balcony, with plastic fencing cut in wide berth around them, the seeds all started out quite well.  Except for the peppers.  They were not sprouting for nothing.  Turns out, they are just long germinators.  And they like the heat.  Now, all the peppers and eggplants look quite happy and I can probably think about their permentant growing spot soon.

Not so for the lettuce.

While it started strong, it has been slow growing.  And easy wilting.  I have finally today brought it inside, along with the oregano which started weak and seems to not have grown at all.  Tom swears up and down he told me I could start planting earlier.  What he never said was, “Plant the lettuce early.”  I knew it was a cooler weather plant, but for some reason was really stuck in my mind that I wanted to start all the seeds at the same time.  Lesson learned.

I’m not sure what the oregano’s problem is.  Maybe it just knew from the beginning that it was the red-headed step child and is acting out.

That leaves the basil, which started strong and has now stalled.  I am hoping some more attentive watering will fix that.  I really worried about overwatering in the beginning and I think there is just no such thing in Florida container gardening.  I think I will look into some self-watering containers for next year.

If I decide that this is even worth doing next year of course.  The newly planted tomatoes were on the top shelf of my little unit – where a tray of seeds has been this entire time.  Then there was a BOOM and a SWOOSH (Spike fleeing to under the bed).  I managed to find all the plants in the debris.  And all the fondue forks I had stuck in as mini-stakes for now.  I have cursed and swept and pressed and the planter is now residing on the middle shelf.

Green thumbs crossed, there will be a part II of this sometime.

I’m 36.  And I’ve given up wondering when I’ll start to feel adult.  I am now hoping I can hold onto feeling like a kid for as long as possible.

Things – job hunt aside – have been well.  Overall.  And I started a post about an amazing weekend Tom and I had a few weeks ago, but when I came to back to it I found I’d written about helping one of my favorite cats at the sanctuary.  She died less than a week after that.  Kinda ruined the story for me.

But we did have an awesome weekend.  Both then and just this past one.  I hit a scale-related goal that meant I took a birthday break from calorie counting and there was Teppanaki with a side of Groupon for a cheap and delicious meal.  There was also ice cream, hiking a new (to us) preserve, and taking the dog to the farmer’s market and watching her silently FREAK OUT over the diplay toy dog because WHAT DOES IT WANT FROM ME??

I very much enjoy newness and sometimes will insist on newness for newness sake consequences be damned.  But lately I’ve been trying very hard to like the status quo.  I am looking for stability and sameness in my schedule and accepting that maybe I won’t find another job before we take off for the AT.

Which should be less than a year away now!  Whoo! 

(We actually will agree to any start date between now and July if his company will give him time off with a promise of a job waiting when we get back.)

But, although I may accept my position as Grandma’s purse-holder and Jack Daniel’s supplier and cocktail napkin searcher (have you ever tried to find cute cocktail napkins?), I am also breathing a sigh of relief that we do have some new ideas coming our way.

First off, we have a vacation planned to visit some friends in DC, hike Shennandoah with them, and see some of the capitol.  I’ve never been to DC, we’ve never hiked with these friends, and we’ve never done a multiple day camping trip.  It has disaster written all over it and I am so excited!

Secondly, just days after we discussed the possibility of kayaking, a full day kayak rental was the livingsocial deal in our town.  We have to use it by June 17th, so hopefully it will provide new blog material soon and a new activity that we can do together.  Our current activity list of things to do together encompasses 1) hiking 2) watching TV 3) eating 4) having sex 5) light to medium banter/arguing.  It’s not the worst list, but I am always hoping to include Tom in things that break a sweat and there’s a sex joke in there somewhere.

And…maybe that’s it?  Or all I feel comfortable talking about.   Except I did just take a call from a groomer and booked Lady for the her second-ever complete shave to prep for the summer.  I asked my grandmother for my birthday to take me to a hair salon since she really has been wanting to go but feels silly since she goes to one at her retirement place and hated the idea of breaking her standing appointment so I made it all my fault and now she gets to have her hair done at the place she really liked before when she could drive and I’ll get a trim too which is desperately needed as scissors have not touched my head since CM whacked off 14 inches to send to Locks of Love 2 1/2 years ago.

So all three of us fine looking girls will be sporting new ‘dos by the end of the week and maybe that’s enough to get excited about for now.

One of the things I am loving right now in my life is that I am really only accountable to myself.  I suppose Tom might raise an eyebrow if the condo were on fire when he arrived home.  And my grandma might dither a little with cross-ish noise if I didn’t show up one week because I said watching paint dry took presecedence.  But really, neither of them has ever been as demanding of me as I am.

Which also leads to why one of the things I am hating right now is that I am only accountable to myself.

If I had a regular desk job, I could be receiving such praise for accomplishing so little!  Someone else would tell me when to have things done!

I’m feeling a little fried.  I took on February with guns blazing and now I am out of ammo.  Every week I set myself goals – how little TV I’ll watch, how much I’ll exercise, how many jobs I’ll apply for, how many shits I’ll take (12).

Every week I make this goals, reach for them, succeed, then sit down Monday and think, “How can I make myself better?  What can I do more?  What should I do less?”

Does it sound annoying to you?  If not, I must be telling this story wrong.  “Tell better stories.”  That’ll have to go on the list.

Just feeling not quite right this week.

Two weeks ago I did a lot of research and started planning to do some container gardening on our patio.  Vegetables and herbs.  But then the weather here has been too cold to try and start seeds outdoors and my online order of vertical planters hasn’t arrived yet.  (When they arrive and if they are a success I’ll share the details.)  With four cats and limited space it’s not practical to try and start seeds indoors.  This all goes against my gut approach of “Do now, google later if things go wrong”, but I really want this to be successful.

I’m chugging away at the job hunt.  I’m waiting to hear back from an interview, but I’m not holding my breath.  I have a hunch I should re-vamp my resume, but it is in the style a professional created for me a few years ago and it got lots of attention then.  I’m just pretty bad at selling things, including myself.  I get antsy as we get to the middle of the month because that’s when Grandma pays me for the next month.  And each month I think, “Maybe I’ll get a job offer before then and can turn down her check!”

After months of vaguely discussing having an aquarium for the soothing effect and cat enrichment, Tom got serious with the planning and craigslist-shopping and finally put fish in it this weekend.  The fish are too small for all but one of our cats to notice, and this morning I realized I just signed up for one more chore that is solely mine Monday-Friday.  (Yeah, yeah, fish are not exactly high maintenance.  But unless they start learning to clean cat litter pans, they add to the mental juggle of home care.)

I started participating a bit in the online forums connected to a particular weight loss app I use.  I forgot how annoying it is when someone ignores your specific questions and provides their own ramble of how they disagree with your basic eating/exercise/breathing.  Lesson learned.  Again.

I am now wondering if I do that or have that done to me in conversations and don’t realize because it’s not printed out right in front of me.

I keep emails and/or draft emails of things that aren’t quite to-dos but I need to keep in my general consciousness.  Reward points that should be awarded within 30 days, online shopping orders that I haven’t received, timeline of not-exactly-sick-but-not-exactly-well behavior of a cat, etc.  I have nine draft emails right now and for some reason that depresses me.

Sometimes I am in a group, or even one on one, and the entire time I’m gauging exactly how much input is required of me to continue the conversation flow.  It is amazing how much people like to talk sometimes.

I bet when I am in a conversation and I’m not thinking the above, I ramble on not letting anyone else get a word in. 

Most often I try to schedule myself so that between work and volunteering I still have one day where I don’t have to leave the house.  This week I didn’t.  I dreaded going to volunteer yesterday afternoon, I wanted so badly to just putz around the condo.  I felt better once I got there.  I hope the same happens today.

You would not believe the number of commas I edited from this post.

(I thought about going back and bulletizing this post so you wouldn’t try to follow it straight through.  But I’m too lazy.  Sorry.)

So, for those not in the know, I work a non conventional part-time job driving up to my grandmother’s once a week to help her with chores, take her out to eat, and bring her a movie to watch.  Yes, I’m expensing my netflix account on my taxes. 

About a year ago, her cataracts were very bad and I started this gig with the idea that I might transition her to a true assisted-living facility.  Instead, I saw her through surgery and correct eye wear purchases and while she is not as independent as she was before (girl’s gonna be 90 in June, she’s allowed to slow down), she has adapted her life such that for the near future she’ll stay in her apartment.  (The apartment is in a retirement community that provides certain amenities to facilitate this.)

ANYWAY, that was a long-ass paragraph to sum up two points:  1) pretty obvious why I’m looking for full-time employment elsewhere and 2) while I do draw a salary from this endevour, Tom makes twice as much as I do. 

Tom also travels almost 100% for work.  So you add all that together, and it’s pretty clear who should be pulling most of the domestic duties around here.

Where is that pool boy, anyhow?

After months of slaving away where I spot cleaned the walls, mopped the floors, and dusted the ceiling fans – EVERY WEEK – Tom not only did not notice my efforts, he admitted he felt we weren’t equal partners.

I threw my hands up and sulked for a month or so.  I call that period, “The Bones month”, because I probably spent a good portion of my non work/volunteer time watching seasons 1 – 5.  I suppose we could also categorize it as “The dust bunny month” and “The month you should not walk barefoot in my house”.

But even I can get skeeved out at a mess and feel slothful.  So I set about to work smarter, not harder.  It didn’t take much observation to realize Tom only had a few domestic ideals I needed to adhere to in order for there to be (perceived) equality and harmony in our situation.

And herein lies the rule of the 3 Gs.  As long as these 3 things have been accomplished by the time Tom’s bags hit the kitchen floor, he believes I am doing my fair share.  I hope in passing on this wisdom I can bring peace to other domestic squabbles and allow people more time to watch TV.

1)  Garbage.  The man cannot stand to take out the garbage.  The morning before he comes back, I take it out or at the very least check that it is not too full or too smelly to see us through the weekend.  When the odd chance pops up that the garbage needs attending while he’s home, I do it or at the very least be the one to remember and handle it when we’re heading out somewhere.

2)  Gas.  I am the type of person who knows how many miles I can really get from my car when the gas light comes on.  My trip thingy even includes a DTE guesstimate, but I have long since realized I can push it at least twice as far as the original warning.  28.5 miles my ass.  For Tom, 1/4 tank means PANIC DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON GET TO STATION NOW.  And my car is the nicer, more luxury car so it is the one we use over the weekends, and the one Tom will use if given a choice.  If I want him to think I am a responsible, sane person who is dutifully taking care of hearth and home while he’s away, it will have at least a 1/2 tank Friday afternoon.

3)  Groceries.  This one, I will admit, I don’t think is an absolute must.  There are times when Tom doesn’t mind, even enjoys, a trip out for provisions.  But for the most part, he prefers these outings to not be a neccessity.  He cannot come home to no toilet paper, low on peanut butter, or the statement, “Let’s eat out for the next 72 hours!”.  And woe on to me if there is no diet soda in the house.

Granted, there is a tad bit more I achieve every week – some Friday rituals for a spic-n-span house (at a squinty, far away glance.  Which is the eyesight setting through which I believe most men observe their domain).  But really he’ll only notice if I get frustrated with him making a mess of things.

Just don’t check my ceiling fans.

That pretty much sums it up, huh?

I am a believer in the power of thought, so all last night when I slipped up and said I was sick and then immediately said I wasn’t, I wasn’t trying to be cute.  I truly felt it was healthier for me to say I wasn’t sick.

I took my temp at 4am.  101.3.  No thinking that away.

I also got two fillings re-done yesterday, which I think contributed to my illness.  I’ve only had one cavity since I became an adult, but had several mecury fillings that needed to be re-done.  I put it off a few times by simply not scheduling a drilling appointment, but this time they pinned me to a day and time before I left the office.

Tom was sick all weekend, and still isn’t 100% up to snuff.  I foolishly believed this was a permutation of the cold I had while at Disney, and that I was immune.  Plus, I take vitamin C.  And I got back to the gym.  And ate some fruit and veggies.

Yesterday morning, when I was just feeling “not quite right”, I thought it was nerves over 1) the dentist and 2) the job.  I interviewed last Wednesday as an office manager and while it wasn’t the best interview ever (hey, my first in…4 years?), they seemed impressed.  I fully expected to get a phone call yesterday offering me the position.

And since I am not only a believer in the power of thought, but in the ability to jinx oneself with speaking wishes outloud, I’ve tried to keep mum about it so as not to anger the career monkeys in the sky.

But now I’m sick and the phone is silent and I need a hug.  Except not one from Tom.  Dude is a biohazard.

Phew.  I had that last post about my dad sitting there for weeks.  I didn’t want to read it anymore, didn’t have the stomach for editing it much, but didn’t want to dump it.

Instead, I dumped it on you!   (I feel like saying, “Ha ha!” there, but perhaps it isn’t appropriate when speaking of a post about your father’s death.  But when your dad dies, you do inappropriate things.)

Anyway!  Where were we?  Resolutions!  As usual, I had to look back in my archives to see if I needed to sum up what I accomplished in 2010 and…nope.  I asked/demanded for 2010 to be better than 2009.  Didn’t happen.

I will admit, a secret resolution I had was to get healthier and lose some weight.  But I had made that resolution the year before.  Didn’t happen.  This is perhaps a theme for my blogging resolutions and I should quit while I’m ahead….

But when have I ever done THAT?

I am about 30 pounds lighter than around this time last year.  I gained a few pounds back with the holidays, but they were agreeable pounds.  I threw a cookie decorating party for crying out loud.  I made my blueberry smoothies with egg nog (delish!).  Minus a few mindless-eating-because-food’s-there situations, I am happy with the holiday noshing.

But!  Now I am back-to-business and in-your-face and other-hyphenated-phrases-that-mean-I-wish-to-kiss-ass!  By the numbers, I have roughly 30 more pounds I could lose.  My ultimate goal though, which may occur before then, is to fit into the fast-drying convertible cargo pants I purchased for my Costa Rica trip in 2006.  I found them in a close out sale for a size almost too small then.  I even opted for (gasp!) cotton yoga pants during one rain forest trip so I didn’t feel like a string was cutting me in half.  I got soaked and those pants were never the same again.  It is put-up-or-shut-up time with the cargo pants, and they are far too perfect for walking the AT to give them away now.

The AT is a theme to my resolutions.  Preparing for it, saving for it, or embracing the simpler life that it stands for in my mind.  So of course one of my resolutions is to hike more in 2011.  Assuming I wish to see my husband on the weekends, this should be an easy one to keep. 

An idea that I want to encompass in this is that our vacations be hiking related.  We were all set to have a mellow travel year in 2010, and then I got itchy about passports unused and we went to Jamacia for a wedding.  (Which…I never wrote about maybe?  Because I got entirely too drunk – puking through the night drunk – and it was embarassing and kinda ruined the trip for me since it was just over a weekend?)  Then my father..died.  I was going to write got sick and died.  But really,  he died within 24 hours of my first visit home.  And although some of that travel has been family-financed, it still takes a toll once you count the pet sitter, the parking, etc.

So this year, we will plan to go to the cabin in Wisconsin to bury my father’s ashes and do some hiking.  Hopefully any other reservations we need will involve a campsite and not a hotel room.

Since financing the AT is a BIG obstacle at this point, another resolution is to continue to look for a job.  I am trying to not be too picky, but the reality is after over 20 years in the workforce I have a strong idea of what will and won’t work for me in terms a daily task list.  Luckily, those 22 years have been spent doing everything from washing floors to real-time-top-secret-coding-stuff.  I am optimistic there will be a square-shaped hole somewhere for me.

Lastly, in simplifing life a bit I hope to not only save some cash for our big adventure but also feel that I am living more like the kind of person who takes off to hike the AT.  I plan to phase out most of our household cleaners for vinegar and baking soda (usually not a fan of  chemicals anyway, but I got sucked into the whole speciality-surface formula jazz).  I have already started baking our bread instead of buying.  I have always half-heartedly tried the rule of only eating sweets I make myself as part of my diet, so I hope to stick to it with more than a fleeting Oh, look ice cream! fancy.  I’m taking more of a scan at food labels, not just for the calories anymore but also the ingredients.  I like sugar, but does it really have a place in tomato sauce?

So…I have my work cut out for me.  I’m honestly afraid to suggest what 2011 might bring…but what the hell!  Here’s to hoping for brighter and better!

My father died of pulmonary fibrosis, brought on by rheumatoid arthritis.

The diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis is a death sentence.  Ususally 2 -5 years.

He had 11 days.  To our knowledge (my father was very independent regarding his health), he had never been told he had this disease before his last hospital stay.  There have been other cases where the disease progressed this quickly, but it is definitely not the norm.  His arthritis, his past smoking habit (he quit 13 years ago), and even the medication for his arthritis were all strikes against him.

But still.  On Monday they were suggesting hospice and that he go home with nursing care.  By Tuesday they could only offer to make him comfortable at the ICU, he was too sick to go home.  He died Wednesday morning.

 The morning he passed away, his heart had stopped three times and been brought back chemically.  It wasn’t going into sudden strange rhythms that could be shocked away, it was just slowly fading.  Rushed labs showed kidney damage as well.

We agreed to remove the intubation tube.

Since then, I’ve googled pulmonary fibrosis, when to remove life support, my dad died, and every permutation of those words possible.  It felt like we made the decision in somewhat haste, although I am the one who initated the discussion.  In part I suppose because we all had prepared ourselves beforehand that it might come to this.  And in part because it was so painful to watch the numbers on the monitors slowly but steadily fall.

I know logically we did the right thing.  I am happy that I saw my father’s face unobstructed by tubes before he left this world.  I know that the doctors would not have removed ventilation unless it was a humane thing to do.

But still.  I feel guilty that I did not enter that hospital room wishing for a miracle.

New year’s eve was a big deal to my parents – Dad always drove to China town to buy shrimp to go in his famous gumbo and they had a huge party.  So this year, I suggested Mom and my brother (I think I call him George here?  It’s been a while…) come to sunny FL and visit Disney.

It either sound horrid or lovely to you in theory.  In practice, it worked pretty well for us.  The actually new year’s eve night was pretty boring and maybe a bit sad – we maxed out on people during the day so just snoozed away in the hotel.  I also got pretty sick with run-of-the-mill cold that I’m still fighting.  And the hotel I picked catered maybe to foreigners?  Because the rooms and services did not include several items we think of as common in hotels these days in the US but I know aren’t part and parcel of the hotel industry in Europe.

They also had a round-about in the entrance.  Which Tom says is entirely European driver-savy.

But we finagled around the daily charge for a mini-fridge by purchasing one at Walmart.  Ended up cheaper that way, and now Tom has one more item to complete his man-cave in the den/loft.

Tom’s mom and aunt came down to stay two nights with us as well.  His mom retired this year and decided early on she wanted to try and meet my parents now that she had a flexible schedule.  I am sad she didn’t get to meet Dad, but we  had a great time at Epcot together and stayed to see the fireworks on Jan 1st, which is almost as good as new year’s eve and a hell of lot less crowded.

I didn’t really miss Dad at all during the event, since Disney was definitely not his cup of tea.  Going into it, I figured that would make it better or worse and there was no telling until we sucked it up and did it.  And Mom seemed really happy – it was her first visit to Disney.  For me personally, we did not get to the parks early enough (sometimes two hours after opening!) and I would have stood in lines longer for the more popular rides.  But as a family vacation, it was a huge success and something we may plan a get-away next year as well.

I meant to save room to talk about resolutions…but this appears wordy enough.  Since I am not making a resolution to write more, perhaps I’ll get to them in June?