Boring house update for you...excitement for me!!

Guess what I did today?

The boy is ordering 2.5 tons (!!) of pea gravel and sand and digging out the garden next week. We are hoping for something along these lines as the end result, except with raised garden beds. And not so fancy of a path.

The plan was to do a bigger garden than this, but money just got out of control and we can't afford it. I plan to start seedlings for the early crops, like lettuce, in a few weeks. We are building a grow room in the cellar (yes, there were many jokes about this once we decided to do it) so that we can possibly keep some of the plants, specifically herbs, alive year round. We are going to use it initially to grow the seedlings and then figure it out from there. 

I will be posting in process pictures all next week. I AM SO EXCITED. Every seed listed above is an heirloom variety, meaning they are not genetically modified and were being grown prior to WWII. They are not commercially available, except recently at farmers markets. In other words,tomatoes that are so full of flavor and juice they explode in your mouth, as opposed to the mealy, flavorless, dry tomatoes you get at the grocery store.

I have never had a garden before. Or really had the follow through to keep much alive (plants, that is) for more than a few months. So, this is going to be a challenge.

On top of that, hooker is a landscape architect and is coming over to test our soil to see if we can grow herbs in the ground or need raised bed gardens for those as well. She is also landscaping our yard. For free. FREE. I am so excited to understand what plants I have and how to take care of them instead of just damage control on the 1800 mulberry trees that keep trying to grow. 

So be prepared for pictures and pictures and pictures as this all unfolds. Last summer was the year of keeping the yard under control...this year is making it look fucking bad ass. I can't wait!

Hookers, Harry Potter, and No More Dead Puppies

Sometimes it is hard to get out of your own pile of shit. It's hard to realize there are other people out there with their own problems, because you are buried so far underneath your own. My work is so shitty right now because we are understaffed. I am inconvenienced because the insurance adjuster keeps going on vacation and not approving our claim so we can start construction. My wine glass is empty and I don't want to walk to the kitchen. 

It's easy to fall into that hole of self pity and just wallow there, with a bottle of wine and reality TV. I mean, I guess that is how you would do it. If you had money for bottles and didn't have to buy boxed. Ahem.

I am completely guilty of this from time to time. I found myself in a full on wallow today. I could practically feel the whining as it came out of my mouth. 

Then my coworker started telling me about the problems he is having with mold in his basement, his wife isn't speaking to him, and so on. It snapped me out of my funk and made me realize that I need to stop being so damn negative all the time. There is no reason for it. I am not a glass half empty kind of person...I am a the glass is not only half empty, but it is filled with rat poison and dead puppies kind of person. Some bullshit I keep telling myself about if you expect the worst, you never get let down. Yes. I realize that I just wrote the first chapter to every self help book ever in that one sentence. I SO GET IT. I am trying. I will never be that chipper person who has sunshine-y thoughts all the time and shits out rainbows. I hate those people. Maybe because I wish I was like them, maybe because they are so fucking annoying I want to beat them senseless with the rainbow coming out of their ass. This is what the therapy I can't afford is for. 

I am trying to expect the best and not the worst. To see the best, and not the worst too. I am trying to trust that people aren't always going to fuck me over. But it is hard. And when met with hard, I usually call it's bluff with a bottle of wine and a book I can get lost in for a few days. 

Do you ever wish that you could have some sort of helmet you put on that allowed you to live the book while you read it? Somebody needs to invent that shit right now because, you guys, I would never stop reading Harry Potter. I would probably be committed.

Scratch that...nobody invent this. Unless insane asylums allow wine. Then I'm good.

I have no idea what happened to this post. 

On a side note, the girl I picked up on the street, who we are now calling hooker, is kind of awesome and is so going to be my new BFF. Or murder me. Even if she does keep insisting she is not going to murder me. But, wouldn't all the psychopaths say that?

New Friends

I want to preface this entire post with a disclaimer that I have a tendency to make friends everywhere. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it is a terrible thing. I have been known to hook up total strangers in a bar. Or to go to a random persons house (never alone!) for after hours drinking. I do weird shit. I have good instincts about people and those instincts have never lead me astray. 

Somehow this all happens despite the unusual level of awkward I bring to every situation. Normally all of the random friendships happen while drinking. Today. Not so much.

I went to a historic home tour today with a friend. I got the tickets free because work was sponsoring the event. The instructions were vague. So, we were wandering around trying to find the place to get the map so we actually knew where the fuck we were going...and this woman walked up to us equally lost. We managed to find the place together and decided to tour all 12 homes together. 

And she was awesome. We cracked each other up all afternoon. I decided to invite her to dinner with us, where we found 1000 things we had in common. 

It is so weird to make a friend at 30 years old this way, but I just did. We exchanged numbers, friended each other on Facebook, the whole thing. 

Both sides of my family are this way...just open to talking to anyone. Friendly with everyone. And I absolutely love this about myself. Yes, I sometimes find myself dealing with someone I can't stand that I randomly friended. It definitely happens. But, most of the time...I just find really cool people in really random ways. 

I work with a guy who, quite literally, has no friends. They always joke that I always have plans, I always have things going on, and that it is weird. I don't find it weird. I find comfort in surrounding myself with people I love. I don't care if I have 100 different groups of friends. I don't particularly care if they all know each other. There was a time in my life where I was so lonely it hurt. It physically hurt. It was my fault, I chose to seclude myself. Maybe I am making up for that. I don't know. But everyone in my life just makes me so happy. All of you make me so happy. 

There is nothing wrong with surrounding yourself with people who make you laugh. And I just happened to find someone new who makes me laugh. 

Nobody can ever find too much love, can have too many friends, can have too much fun, right? So, yes, I picked this woman up on the side of the street and spent an entire day with her. Commence hooker jokes. 

But, she made my day better. And that is all that really matters.