I’m awake again, and have noticed it has gotten nice outside. The weather has been in the 50’s for a few days, and today it is raining lightly. I stepped outside for a few minutes and just breathed in the smell of spring. I just LOVE that scent.

I would very much like to be outside raking up the gum balls (hundreds – no thousands of them!) and the leaves that fell after my last clean-up in the fall – even in the light rain. I have discovered the daffodils popping up around my yard, and think about clearing away the leaves and mulching so that the green of the stems and eventually the yellow flower will be the clear star of the yard. I’m awake and moving and getting work done in the office, but my energy is still not 100%. This yard work will have to wait.

On Saturday I have a friend coming over to help me tile my laundry room (with leftover tile that was given to me), and will probably post a “How To” blog on tiling. I have finally finished painting the laundry room (I started before the flu hit), and pulled up almost all of the current flooring – several layers thick. It will be nice to put the room back together and actually be able to do laundry again. Last week I took all my laundry to a friends house to use her machines since my laundry room had been completely out of commission for over a month and I had already resorted to buying more “essentials.”

Enjoy the spring!

I’m awake again, and have noticed it has gotten nice outside. The weather has been in the 50’s for a few days, and today it is raining lightly. I stepped outside for a few minutes and just breathed in the smell of spring. I just LOVE that scent.

I would very much like to be outside raking up the gum balls (hundreds – no thousands of them!) and the leaves that fell after my last clean-up in the fall – even in the light rain. I have discovered the daffodils popping up around my yard, and think about clearing away the leaves and mulching so that the green of the stems and eventually the yellow flower will be the clear star of the yard. I’m awake and moving and getting work done in the office, but my energy is still not 100%. This yard work will have to wait.

On Saturday I have a friend coming over to help me tile my laundry room (with leftover tile that was given to me), and will probably post a “How To” blog on tiling. I have finally finished painting the laundry room (I started before the flu hit), and pulled up almost all of the current flooring – several layers thick. It will be nice to put the room back together and actually be able to do laundry again. Last week I took all my laundry to a friends house to use her machines since my laundry room had been completely out of commission for over a month and I had already resorted to buying more “essentials.”

Enjoy the spring!

Yes, the seeds I planted earlier this month have finally started breaking through the soil in the potting flats in my sunroom. Now, there are many more seeds left to “pop,” but this sign of plant life always makes me happy.

Yesterday I planted seeds in my sun room that should produce: 36 cherry tomato plants; 36 Roma tomato plants, 30 Beefmaster tomato plants; 12 yellow pear tomato plants and 6 Anaheim chili pepper plants. This is the latest I have ever started my tomatoes plants. As I stare at the snow coming down today, thinking of my tomato plants gives me hope for a more colorful yard and garden in the spring – I’m getting a little tired of the brown and white.

I spent much of Saturday cleaning carpets throughout my house. After the Friday fiasco, I decided I just needed to bite the bullet and rent a steam cleaner for the day and clean the carpets that had been “effected.” While I had the cleaner, I decided to shampoo all of the carpets in my house – and, well, there went most of my Saturday.

One hint, I did find industrial carpet shampoo that said it worked with residential steam cleaners in the cleaning products aisle at my local box home improvement store. There was twice as much product for almost half as much money as the name brand solutions sold next to the steam cleaners. I think it worked better than the other cleaners as well… so consider checking out the cleaning supplies aisles if you need carpet shampoo.

While at the home improvement store I also purchased tomato seeds. I still haven’t had a chance to plant these yet. I need to move some of my house plants to another room so I can make way for the seed starting trays I am recycling from last year (and get away from my computer long enough to do it.) Last year I started my seeds on January 15th and the year before it was only a week later than that – so I am behind on this planting.

I’ve calmed down a bit since my rant last week - but I did turn up my thermostat from 52 degrees to 58 degrees (still a very reasonable temperature), and I am feeling much more comfortable. And, in an attempt to clean out my laundry room so I can empty, paint the walls and tile the floors – hopefully very soon – I washed the rest of my laundry and took it all to the laundry mat to dry early Sunday morning.

I still skip a flush (or two) when I can, I don’t need to commute to work, so my driving is limited, I try and grow what food I can, and I am trying to be as aware as I can about how my actions impact the planet – but I am going to try and be less austere about it.

I have tried for nearly a full year to do without a dryer. I have frozen fingers and waited six weeks for a dry day to dry my laundry outside. I have had underthings hanging all over my laundry room and sun room to try and keep my carbon footprint low, but today I have had it.

First off, my toilet overflowed… (yes, here it is appropriate to say “gross!”) and I didn’t realize this for several hours (Ewww!). During these lapsed hours the “overflow” saturated a good chunk of my bedroom carpeting. It took EVERY towel in the house to sop up the bathroom floor and affected carpeting. I ran a load of laundry but it is WET outside, and cold and neither of these two things look to be changing soon. I broke down and did not only a load of wet icky towels, but also a load of jeans, swear shirts and pants. Then, I headed to the laundry mat.

I also cranked my heat to 70, hoping that the heat (without the humidifier) would help dry the carpet. I am roasting – way too hot in here – trying to fix this problem.

I tried… and I am weak. I throw up my hands and say “that’s enough!” I want to live in the land of the indulgent again. Screw the environment! I don’t have children… I don’t care if there is a planet for them to live on once I drop dead.

It’s almost 4:30 – I think I will fix myself a drink and try to forget this day.

On Sunday I fulfilled my second two-year term as a warden of my church – first junior warden then senior warden. I am happy to be done with that, and was really looking forward to being able to fill my now freed-up time doing more fun things. Instead, I am thinking a lot about death.

Yesterday and today I spent time researching medical supplies to keep an elderly (almost 101 years old) friend in her home as long as possible. More and more often I have been getting calls from life-line (the “help I’ve fallen and can’t get up” folks) after I am asleep to go pick up this friend off the floor because she has fallen. The doctor seems to think her body is breaking down and it will just be a matter of months, but it is heart-wrenching to hear her cry in agony as I tend to the scrapes on her paper-thin skin that have bloodied both arms – “Why don’t I just DIE!”

On Sunday I attended a memorial service for a person I knew fairly well a decade or two ago when I was very involved in the lgbt community. I realized that his memorial and that of a good friend who died just five years ago were probably on the same date (or off by just a day) – just five years apart. So I have been thinking about both of these two individuals, as well as my chosen dad who died just three weeks before my friend five years ago.

Yesterday I received a notice from my church that the wife of one of our members had just died. It seems like it was just two or three weeks ago they learned that the cancer had spread throughout her body. I didn’t know her well, but she was very helpful in creating a pattern and templates when we made the pads for the “Goods for Girls” a year or so ago, and as an employee of a fabric store, she got us a discount from the store manager so we could create the 73 cloth sanitary pads to be sent to Africa. I remember her as being a wonderfully energetic, happy and caring person. My thoughts are with her husband today.

I am also thinking a bit about next week, which will be a full ten years since my marriage ended – which in a way is a kind of death… I’ve had a new life since then, but thinking about the good, the bad and the ugly of an eleven-year relationship does stir up quite a few emotions.

Today I think I would like to climb back into bed. Perhaps what I really need to do is plant something soon so I can be reminded of life. We’ll see what actually happens.

It was a productive Saturday!

I spent Saturday cleaning out my bedroom and kitchen. I sorted out clothes I haven’t worn for two years to give to charity, and a few nice pieces to pass on to a person who has lost a huge amount of weight and some pieces in my “in case I lose weight” pile might fit her.

The reason it is important to clean out my bedroom closets – aside from the fact that last time I went out it took me over an hour of trying on clothes to find something that looked good and fit – is that I have food stored in one of the closets. I have 20 pounds of rice, and sealed containers of flour and sugar and extra bottles of water, jars of jellies and stored in there, and I needed to rotate some of this.

The next order of business was cleaning out my pantry. Now, I am fortunate that I have a fairly large pantry with deep shelves for food. I do not have a walk-in pantry, as a friend of mine does, but, alas, we do what we can. I have put in additional shelves so I can make the most out of the space I have available.

Shelf by shelf I went through my pantry and threw away items that had expired. One that had never been opened but had expired in 2005, one a box of pancake mix that had expired in 2007 and something that did not have an expiration date on it, but it didn’t look quite “normal.” Also to go, a bag of sugar that never made it into a sealed container and had formed itself into a rock.

Then I placed like items together. The higher shelf had “baking” items on it. Things like sugar, flour, corn meal, brown sugar, oils, boxed brownie mix (I know, bad for me, but I love chocolate and it is easy to make) and my back-up coffee (mostly because there was space and it is not something I grab on a regular basis.)

The next shelf is for pasta and other starches. Since pasta has a long shelf life (up to seven years in air tight containers), I have purchased a large amount of it during the 10 for $10 sales at a local grocer. I have several large food grade storage containers and in each container I have placed a different type of pasta – at least the kinds I use a lot. I can get 20 boxes of spaghetti into one of the containers, and all the containers stack well, so it is a real space saver. I also purchased pasta sauce on sale, and it has another year until it expires. Also on this self are containers of rice, barley, beans, split peas, dried tomatoes, and cheap storage boxes filled with packaged items like roman noodles, cornbread mixes, and other easy to make items I have acquired over the years. I could probably live for two months on the food on this shelf alone!

The next shelf contains canned soups – all purchased on sale (50 cents a can). I can easily store 88 cans of soup on this shelf. This shelf is where I keep the canned tuna and cranberry sauce (the shelf is for shorter cans) and a long thin box where I keep tons of microwave popcorn. OK, perhaps you see a trend here – Julia Child I’m not!

The next shelf is for canned veggies, tomatoes, broths, and all things that were “canned” and are in jars.

Finally, there is the misc. shelf that has all things tall – like jars of peanut butter, oatmeal, containers of powdered hot chocolate, individual packets of flavored oatmeal given to me by a friend who decided she didn’t like it, and other misc. “boxed” food things.

Once I organized these shelves, I began making notes about what I needed to better use some of these foods, or items I was running low on. I also noted that I could free up space for things I really like once I ate things that I had forgotten I had (perhaps because they weren’t my most favorite food.)

This cleaning project also got me thinking about the foods I eat and how much processed stuff I still have in my kitchen. I’m slowly learning how to fix foods that use more fresh foods, but it is a matter of changing habits – and that takes time. Now, let’s not get crazy here – I’m never going to part with my macaroni and cheese in a box, microwave popcorn, or powdered hot chocolate mix. But, there are other items which I hope to eventually have fresh or fresh frozen rather than from a can.

Next I cleaned out my spice drawer. Yes, I think it is funny that I have a spice drawer when I don’t cook – but I have lots of them, and actually found two or three of some items I’ve never used. I tossed all but one of each spice, and checked expiration dates and tossed those that had expired years and years ago. Now my once full drawer now has a single row of spices, names facing up, so I can see what I have and perhaps learn how to use them.

When all that was done, I fixed myself a bowl of microwave popcorn, a mug of hot chocolate, sat in front of my fireplace and watched a little television. I figured I had earned the break.

OK, after my comments yesterday I pulled the sheets off the line in the afternoon and they were bone dry… and they smell so good! I decided I didn’t want to have to tumble dry unless I really had no other choice. So, today was another low humidity day and slightly warmer so I did another load, and this time I grabbed some of those reusable gloves people sometimes wear to wash dishes (I use for cleaning out the gutters – and had a new pair available). These kept my fingers away from the water and cold, and I was able to line dry my jeans, sweatshirts and sweatpants. They are taking a little longer than the sheets – but they should be dry soon.

Yes, line drying in the winter is doable – just not as enjoyable as during the spring, summer and fall.

It is 15 degrees outside – with a negative 1 degree windshield – and I took a few wet sheets outside to dry on the line.

THIS IS INSANE!

OK, those of you who do this on a regular basis… how do you manage without freezing your fingers with the wet fabric? I was only out for a few minutes and only had three large sheets to hang, and by the time I got back inside I thought my poor fingers were going to fall off. The knit gloves I was wearing did me very little good.

I have one sheet hanging in my sunroom on a line, and several towels and pillowcases hanging off of hangers in the laundry room. It is about time to do jeans and sweatshirts, and I’m not sure how I will dry all of these smaller pieces inside – or handle them outside with the cold.

I may very possibly break down and take my wet laundry to the laundry mat to dry, which really defeats the purpose of me not having a dryer.