gardening 4 Comments

Getting Back In Touch With My Garden

While I was home today, nursing my lower back, Aaron suggested that I go into the back yard and check out the plants that are actually thriving on my benign neglect.

Turns out that the tiger lilies daylilies that I planted back in the fall are not only big and bushy, but are about to bloom! They’re currently sporting tall stalks topped with large orange buds. A photo op will soon be had.

The roses of sharon that I kept in my watering can are still green, while the one I planted in the ground is officially a dead stick. I can deal with hydroponic altheas, I suppose. Maybe someday I’ll manage to plant them somewhere appropriate.

My herb garden was the big shocker for me. I’d just about given up on it after the fuzzy aminals ate all my parsley and sweet basil. All that was left was catnip and two lemon basil plants.

The catnip are a freakin’ foot tall now. And the lemon basil plants are healthy and bushy. Who knew?

I harvested several stalks of catnip, and have some catnip tea chilling in the fridge right now. (I think I put too much honey in it, though. Oops.) I currently have about five stalks of catnip hanging in my dining room, and I have every intention of making Mei a cute catnip toy with The Good Stuff™, as soon as it dries.

Moral of the story? Bulbs good. Invasive herbs good (for my gardening style, anyway). High-maintenance plants not so good.

health & fitness 2 Comments

Ouch.

I really fucked up my back this weekend. Now I know how Aaron felt the few times he messed up his lower back.

I’m still going to work tomorrow, but I’m calling the chiropractor shortly after 9am. Hopefully Dr. Smith can get me in sometime tomorrow. I’d even be willing to take half a day off of work to go get fixed up sooner.

Man. I’m OK as long as I don’t fucking move. As soon as I go to switch position or stand up or whatever, though, my way-lower back hurts like a bitch. I’m not usually one for going to doctors, but I’m definitely going to the chiropractor tomorrow. This is ridiculous.

Update, 7/5/06 12:40pm: Ended up taking the day off of work. Woke up this morning with an improved back, but tired as hell. Called in at 7:30am and told my boss’s voicemail that I screwed up my back painting over the weekend, and that today would be devoted to having quality time with my chiropractor and generally getting better. Promptly went back to bed.

Called the chiropractor’s office at 10:15am. The earliest I’d be able to get in as a new patient would be next week, and that would be with someone other than Dr. Smith, as she’s out of the office. I told the nice receptionist that I’d give it some thought and get back with her. I promptly went upstairs and went back to bed.

My back does feel a little better today. I have plans for maxing and relaxing for a good part of the day, using either the massager or the heating pad on my back to keep it loose. I’m not terribly keen on going to a different chiropractor, as Dr. Smith has been heartily approved by both Aaron and Kris. We’ll see how I feel after today.

house 1 Comment

Painting Complete

I mentioned before that taping the trim and ceiling took two hours on Saturday night. What I didn’t mention was that I woke up on Sunday with a twinge in my lower back, presumably from bending over and applying painter’s tape to over 60 linear feet of trim and window and such.

No matter. After lunch on Sunday, we laid down the plastic dropcloth and began priming the room. That took an hour and a half, then we waited another hour for the primer to dry, during which time I became better acquainted with the pain in my back. Laid on the floor, did some stretching, and was ready to go for the actual painting process.

After we thought we were done for the day, and after Aaron had already showered, I read on the internets that it would probably be a good idea to remove the tape before the paint dried. So we did that. (The above photo was taken while Aaron was getting his shower on, and before we removed the painter’s tape.) We had a few oopsies, including blooping paint down through the tape in one place and accidentally peeling the old ceiling paint off in others, but I’m not really upset about that.

I think we were a little concerned that one gallon of paint wouldn’t be enough to cover the entire room, so we probably spread the paint a little too thin. At any rate, we have a few touch-ups to do tomorrow. Overall, I’m still pleased with the result.

Check out more photos of the painting aftermath on Flickr!

PS – My back is still sore, but it’s getting better. Taking a walk today really helped to loosen it up. I’m going to try to lower myself into a nice hot bath shortly.

house 3 Comments

Painting

Well, last weekend was Mom’s visit, and the weekend before was the Waterville Community Garage Sale, so this weekend has been the first where we’ve been able to think about painting the small bedroom.

Yesterday, we hit Home Depot and bought all our supplies: painting implements, dropcloths, painter’s tape, spackle, putty knives, and other miscellany. Including primer and paint, of course. We’re painting the room in April Mist, which is kind of a light green with a tinge of blue to it.

We didn’t actually start on anything until well after dinner yesterday. Around 9pm or so, we moved all the furniture and boxes out of the room and vacuumed the carpet. Then we spent two hours taping the edges: baseboard trim, ceiling, window, all that. We finally got done around midnight.

Today, once Aaron wakes up and we have lunch, we’ll start on applying our one coat of primer (Kilz, of course), let it dry, then one coat of paint. We’ll see if that’s sufficient, or if we’ll need to go get another gallon of paint for a second coat. The room is small — 9′ x 9′ — so one gallon of paint should suffice, assuming we only need one coat. We’ll see.

Taping went relatively well, if slowly, so hopefully that was the most tedious part of the process. I hope we don’t screw anything up too bad today. 🙂

randomness

Junk

I made it through a couple more boxes and my trunk tonight. I now have a box of keepsakes (i.e. things I don’t want to get rid of, but am not going to need to use or display for a while) and a couple small piles of stuff on the living room floor. Stacks of paper and art supplies, mainly.

This begs the question: where does this junk live?

After I get the small bedroom clear of my junk, I’m going to need to clean and reorganize my desk area. That’s where most of this shit seems to be migrating.

This is just ridiculous.

Next task: clean out the closet in the small bedroom and reorganize our games. Maybe thrift or eBay some of the ones we’re never going to play. That’s going to be massive, too.