gardening

Happy Plants

There’s some flowering bushes in the backyard of our apartment here. Someone once told me it was called a Rose of Sharon, and a little online research proved her correct. Anyway, I decided when I first saw them bloom that I love those bushes, and I decided to attempt cuttings to take with me to the new house.

A couple of weeks ago (or maybe it was last week), I made probably almost two dozen cuttings of this plant, all of various thicknesses, about six to eight inches long apiece. I planted about ten of them in a big pot full of perlite—that white, styrofoamy, pebbley substance. I covered them with plastic to keep the moisture in, placed them by a not-too-drafty window, and I’ve been dutifully watering them every day.

I peeked through the plastic (wax paper, actually) today to see if anything was happening… and some of the twigs are growing buds! Little green leaf buds. How about that! They’re not dead… yet. We’ll see if they actually root in a couple of months.

Until then, I also have another bundle of cuttings lying dormant in the refrigerator, ready to be planted outside to attempt rooting a different way. One way or another, I’m going to have a Rose of Sharon. Oh, yes. It will be mine.

house

Moving Day

It has been decided. Moving Day is Sunday, March 21st. We have begun packing, we have reserved a U-Haul, and we have contacted the utility companies so we have the necessities of life when we arrive in Toledo.

It’s kinda damn cool.

So, the festivities will begin bright and early at 217 South Grove Street in Bowling Green, Ohio. We will pack the giant-size U-Haul with all our personal effects, then caravan up to 4651 Ventura Drive in Toledo, where the unloading will commence. All who assist will be welcome to partake in the traditional “Thank You For Helping Us Haul Our Shit” post-move meal, courtesy of the move-ees (that would be Aaron and myself).

For now, the challenge lies in getting everything packed and ready to go.

drumcorps

Landscaping and other randomness

I gave some more thought to landscaping the house today at work, and over lunch I drew our a couple plans for the front flower bed. I was thinking, for anyone into the whole HGTV-ish gardeny landscapey thing, that first we could hack down the overgrown bushes in the front to normal bush size. Then, I plan to mix some purple and some white flowering plants along with some white flowering ground cover, so as not to cover up the windows. I do have some ideas of flowers I’d like to use, like Lavender, Petunias, and Christmas Roses, among others that I haven’t decided on yet. The trick is going to be finding just the look I want, with flowers that like the shade, since it’s beneath an overhang on the north side of the house. I was also hoping to plant some stuff that blooms at different times, so there’ll always be some color out there… but that might be a little beyond my scope. Maybe I’ll save the rotating garden concept for when I tackle a backyard flower garden…

OK, girlie time is over. *whew*

The dude upstairs came home after I got back from my walk this evening (enjoying the weather), and proceeded to turn up his stereo. He doesn’t do it often, but it’s annoying when he does. So, I proceeded to fill my 5-CD changer with stuff—nothing too overbearing, though. Peter Gabriel’s latest, and Catherine Wheel’s last album, and 24 Gone (their only album), and Depeche Mode’s most recent album (I’m seeing a trend), and the Cure Acoustic Hits (which I think was their latest release, too. Weird). It’s turned up a little louder than I would normally keep it, but it’s by no means blasting. Just loud enough to drown out whatever music he decides to turn up every now and then.

That got me to thinking… I kind of miss college, but not really. I miss it in that pleasant nostalgic way, where the memories are fun to look back on (like radio wars, which is how my brain got from there to here). Not the kind of missing where I would want to do it again. Not like drumcorps.

Speaking of… I’ve been practicing more this week, when the upstairs dude isn’t home—more out of a need not to embarrass myself than to be considerate. 🙂 I’ve been getting better, and my relative pitch and pitch memory seems to be returning slowly but surely. The muscle memory is sort of there, but the endurance isn’t. I’ve been practing for about a half hour every day this week, doing a slow warm-up to try to rebuild my range (which wasn’t that stellar to begin with). After I warm up, I have about enough stamina and concentration to play through the warm-up tune once, the ballad twice, and to woodshed the march. Then I’m done, and I warm down with some pedal tones (reeeally low notes).

I’m also recalling why I stopped being a music major: I hate to practice. If I’m going to do this, though, I’ll have to crack down. Senior corps doesn’t coddle like Junior corps—and I can’t believe I can think of it like that now. It was so physically exhausting… but everything was planned out and served to you, from your rehearsals to your meals to your everything. Now, in senior corps, I’m going to have to practice on my own time, and hype for shows and parades on the weekends only. It’s a lot easier when it’s your entire life for three months. I hope I’ve still got what it takes. We’ll see.

And on a final note: On the front of my package of round Avery labels, the generic name on the pictured envelope is Tyler Durden.

“In the ear?! Why’d you have to hit me in the ear?”

house

Plants, candles, and other femininities

I’ve been feeling all house-y today. Thinking up what to put in an herb garden, what color scheme I want the front landscaping to have, all that sort of crap. I think I’ve decided on a purple and white thing, but we’ll see. I feel all girlie now. *girlie giggle*

Since I got the rest of my candle supplies, I’ve also been making candles again. Last night was a batch of nine chamomile tealights, and tonight was a batch of nine Drakkar Noir® tealights. Mmm… I’ve gotta splurge some holiday and buy Aaron some Drakkar. Mmm. —Ahem. Anyway, as I was saying, I’m planning to continue until I have sample tealights of all my in-stock fragrances, then ship a package to Sammie to see if she’ll promote me. I’m crossing my fingers, but not holding my breath.

I’m also planning to get myself a new power supply for the poor dormant Frankenstein PC, though that may not happen until we move. I don’t want pieces-parts being forwarded from here to there in the mail or getting misplaced in the move.

And speaking of the move… I tried to be all helpful today by starting to pack the VHS tapes we never watch. Unfortunately, I chose poorly and picked a large box to put most of them in, and it is WAAAY too heavy. So, I’m going to have to unpack the damn box and repack two smaller boxes. Plus another box for the remainder of our tapes. Not to mention our DVDs and CDs, which will be packed at a much later date.

So far, the moving crew appears to consist of myself and Aaron, Kris Fries, Mark, and Eric. We’ll see if we can rope Kris Heath into helping, although it may depend on whether Jamie’s out of town for her students’ Speech Rodeo or whatnot (she’s a high school English teacher and coach for the speech team), or if she’s willing to help us move, too. We’ll see. In any case, it looks like we’ll be able to round up enough bodies to help us cart our shit. Oh, yeah, and yay for U-Haul and giant trucks.

house

House-house!

Well, today was the long-awaited home closing in Toledo. 4651 Ventura is now ours, and we’re just waiting for the seller to call us and let us know when she’s vacated the premises. Transfer utilities, get the keys, find out when trash day is. Yeah.

The only hairy part of today’s closing was reconciling the electrical work we’d requested. See, the outlets in the kitchen and basement weren’t grounded, so that was the main thing we’d asked the owner to get done before closing. When we went through with Rebecca the realtor at 11am this morning for the final walkthrough, we discovered that the kitchen outlets had been fixed, but the downstairs outlets had been replaced with new two-prong outlets instead of wired for the pre-existing three-prong. WTF? When we got to the closing, we found that the seller’s electrician had only brought them up to code by eliminating the possibility of trying to plug in an applicance that needed grounding. I guess that makes some sort of sense… *shrug*

At any rate, our realtor stuck by her guns and made the seller and her realtor (and her electrician, via cell phone) realize that they hadn’t done what we asked. In the end, the seller cut us a check for the estimate on getting the job done right (which Rebecca had gotten faxed to her office while Aaron and I were enjoying a huge lunch at Charlie’s Coney Island).

So… we’re homeowners. Rock on.

FYI, the offer still stands, to anyone who will be in the Toledo or BG area in a few weeks when we move: if you help us move, we’ll buy you food. That seems to be the going rate for moving assistance amongst our group of friends. That, and future indebtedness to the next person who needs help with a move.

We spent a lot of the afternoon contemplating what our future weekend projects will be, including but not limited to:

  • Trimming Bushes
  • Cleaning Gutters
  • Replacing Downspouts
  • Raking Last Fall’s Leaves
  • Reseeding Sections of Lawn

And, of course, arranging and re-arranging our furniture. Especially since we’ll have to keep the downstairs bare of furnishings until we get the electrician in to fix his attempt at a quick-fix. Then we’ll be moving out desks and computers and bookshelves and musical instruments downstairs. Eventually we’ll get some new furniture, too, and put the old stuff down there for a lounging and reading area… but that’s still a ways away.

Long day. Busy day. Whew.

In other news, Aaron took the night off and we rented Lost In Translation. We’re still not sure what we thought of it. I think it accomplished what it set out to accomplish by leaving us feeling slightly disjointed. It’s worth a watch, especially if you’re into Japanese culture (Sheryl, have you seen it yet?), but I don’t plan to watch it again.