Great Monday

First of all, I decided to start jogging again. Okay, trying to jog. I'm using Couch to 5K, a plan to get non-runners in shape to run 3.1 miles in a row. Today was Day 1, and it went very well. I believe that I am in the best shape of my whole life right now, today.

I could still lose 10 pounds, and am slowly working on it, but I am so strong and have the most cardio capacity that I can remember. Ask me how my legs feel tomorrow, and I might tell you a different story. :)

Anyway, on the way home, I was jogging past these huge rocks that were dumped in a field next to a mini power plant or something. The something is unmarked, so I can't tell you what it really is. And I didn't take my camera, so I can't show you, either. The important thing is that upon those rocks, guess what was growing! MOSS!!!

I don't know if you remember my dream for my terrariums of having the ground covered in moss, but that dream had been stymied for 4 or 5 months. I had bought moss spores and planted them, and they never really took off and then they turned brown. I looked for moss around the lake, but I never found any.

Good thing I took that detour today to try to get all my running in without having to go around the lake twice!
I could only carry one clump home with me while I was jogging, but a couple hours later, I was still thinking about that moss and how great it would be to have more, more, more! I had planted the clump in my terrariums and it looked okay, but I kept imagining what it could look like with MORE moss.

 

So I got a messenger bag, lined it with a plastic bag with a wet paper towel inside it, and walked right back over. It was really the mother lode of moss, friends. Here's how it looks in the terrariums.

 


There are two different kinds, one lighter and one darker. The pictures will get bigger if you click on them.

Now I just hope I can keep it alive!

Terrariums

These are the living gifts that I mentioned before Christmas. I made some little terrariums in jars.
 

I put rocks in the bottom, and then some aquarium charcoal (to help keep them clean), and then soil. Then more rocks on top, to make a landscape.

Some are drier, with succulents growing in them. Some are more damp, with ferns and moss. I did not have the best luck with the ferns or the moss. I followed the directions, and kept them moist, and kept them in dim light. I think they needed a little more light, maybe? I hope the ones I gave away will thrive (who wants to give a gift that fails?).

I still have a couple at my house, too, and I'm trying to get them going better. My ferns have died, but the one I gave to Mom didn't look as bad. Maybe she'll have the ferny touch and get hers to be happy again.

 

I put some little animal figurines in them. Also, Mom's had a little white slug that came in her fern. I left it up to her to decide to keep it or take it out. It's sort of cute, like a snail in an aquarium. I know they are a garden pest because they eat plants, but I don't know if one little slug can kill a plant, or if it takes a bunch of them to be a problem.

I think a really cute terrarium would have ferns with little dinosaurs living amongst them! From what I understand, and imagine, GIANT ferns and dinosaurs lived at the same time. So, someday I may make a Triassic terrarium. If I find some dinosaur figurines, which seems totally possible. And if I can keep a fern alive. :)

Tomato thief

Oh, I almost forgot. There were two beefsteak tomatoes growing, but they were still green. Today when I looked at them, someone had stolen one of them and gouged a hole in the other! They're totally not ready to eat, so maybe it was just a kid who did it. It pisses me off, because there were no other big tomatoes, only those TWO. And now one is gone and the other is ruined. That's what you get for having neighbors. If only I were really unobservant! Then I would never know that I had been robbed.

It's a good thing my skirt turned out well, to brighten my mood back up. I will try another one this week, maybe tomorrow. I probably won't make so many mistakes and have to re-sew the same seams 3 or 4 times on the second one. :)

Harvest

 
Today's tomato harvest. The littlest ones are smaller than dimes. I haven't gotten any really big ones yet -- the ones that will be big are still green and little. I don't know if they'll have enough time to mature. Hopefully it won't freeze until October!

The green ones in this photo are ripe. They are called Green Zebras. Fun!

Midgets

 
 

I've been eating a few tomatoes that I grew on the patio. This plant is called Mexico Midget, and the tomatoes are teeny tiny, but with a great, strong flavor. The plant is taller than I am.

I have other tomatoes growing in the front, and I've eaten one yellow cherry so far. The rest haven't ripened yet. I hope they will survive our vacation.

I like growing food! I have a dream of one day having a huge garden, and learning how to can and dry and freeze food so we can eat home grown food all winter long.

In other news, I have been using a different amigurumi book to make some other kinds of animals. These seem to go faster than the bears. They are pretty little, so that makes them go faster.

Amugurumi World is a very cute book. I've only used two patterns so far, but I haven't found any mistakes yet, which is nice. I'm not good enough at crochet to fix people's patterns!

Things Outside

 
 
 
Some things outside at my house:

A giant moth on the neighbor's screen door. That thing could give me nightmares! Once, I woke up and a moth was trying to burrow into my ear. For several nights after that, I slept with the sheet pulled up over my head. Imagine that thing trying to get into your head!

I have a couple of teensy tomatoes starting to grow! Yay! I think it's been 10 years since I've grown food. I didn't realize how much I have missed it. I would love to have a huge garden. I really look forward to the day when I have at least a little one, in the ground. For now, I'll be content with my pots.

There's also a shot of me outside, with my blondish hair in natural light. I have about a week's worth of roots now, and they look black against that lighter hair!

Notice what there isn't? No bees! Jason filled the hole with expanding foam, so they can't get into the wall any more. Every so often, one sad bee flies around the area, looking confused and saying, "Wha?"

Yay for outside!

Our house is being painted

Here's the front of our house. I can't wait until they're done painting it! The guys swarm the house and trample on everything growing in the ground, and are on ladders by all the windows and everything. They are very nice, polite young men, but it is still weird and annoying to have them around.

I want to plant some more flowers out front, but I don't want to do it until they're gone, so they don't smash them all. I just barely saved my tomatoes today! Two of the plants were totally bent in half, and the long stakes that they had been tied to were completely missing! I'm sure it was unintentional, but where are the stakes? They're like 3 ft long, and there is no sign of them.

I will be relieved when they move on to the next building. Hopefully Tuesday will be the last day for our house. They still have to do the back and then all the trim. I'm sure it will look nice when it's finished.

Clematis

Those flowers that I showed you were not, in fact Morning Glories, but Clematis, as you may have noticed. Saturday, during the BBQ, one guest even knew a snobby poem about how to pronounce it properly. Apparently she learned the snobby poem at a snobby nursery or snobby flower shop, and had been waiting for the snobby day when she could recited it haughtily. I would have pronounced it like an Iowan: clem-AT-is. But the snotty way is CLEM-a-tiss.

I wish I could remember all the words to the poem, but I can't. The end is something like, "Those who speak with a hiss know the name is CLEM-a-tiss." It was really funny when she recited it!

Flowers this morning

Here are some morning glories outside of our house. I think this was the first day they bloomed, but I haven't been up early and looking at them, so I can't be sure. The buds looked unopened, though.

Yesterday was a lazy day of low energy and a headache. Here's something stupid: Sunday night I FORGOT to take out my contact lenses. So, I woke up Monday thinking, why do my eyes feel weird? I put on my glasses and couldn't figure out why my vision was blurry. I have never forgotten to take my contacts out before, so it didn't occur to me that I had left them in!

Yes, in college I would sometimes leave them in out of laziness, but I don't think I ever forgot them. Anyway, wearing contacts and glasses for like an hour gave me quite a headache, contributing to my unproductive day.

Today is going to be productive. I already got up at 7:30 and took pictures of morning glories! Come on, that's a great start!