Things I Should Do But May Never Get Around To

Find a way to access a book I downloaded to my tablet. I can’t remember if I used the Nook or Kindle app.  At one point, I was able to read the same book on my computer and tablet.  Now I can’t remember how I accessed this and what email account I used!  I paid for the book and would like to re-read it someday or at least share it.

Plant those tomatoes.  I have the plant, the dirt, a big pot but no desire.

Donate that bag of clothes and other random stuff. 

Finish those blog posts about work/life balance.   There’s a chance I will manage to finish up this post but just not in a timely manner.  I suppose this debate isn’t going away soon though…

Various Tech Stuff, like backing up pictures to the hard drive and setting up a wireless modem.

Go through all my magazine clippings and actually do something about it.  Whether it’s a recipe, organizing idea, new recipes or something else, I tend to clip magazine articles for a specific purpose and then dump these months later.

What do you have on your “Someday I’ll Get Around To It” List?

Do It Myself…

Dilemma: Yesterday I noticed the horrific weeds growing around our garage and elsewhere.  Now it has become an issue stewing in my own head while my husband is oblivious about this suddenly “urgent” new project.  I have a few options.

1) Take my own advice about work/life balance and find a gardener. My neighbor has a good one, not cheap, but reasonable and trustworthy. Don’t mention to my husband and hire on my own. Unfortunately I don’t think he would like gardeners showing up without warning.

2) Mention it to my husband, who will likely want to pay less or find someone on his own, meaning that this “urgent” project won’t get done this weekend.

3) Do it myself and hate it because I should be spending the weekend with my kids.

4) Do it myself and say it’s exercise and a chance to get fresh air.

Which option would you choose? Which is the simplest choice?  I think I already know what I’ll end up doing….I guess the title says it all!

Everyone Is A Secret Backyard Gardener

At work recently, the topic of tomatoes came up. 3 out of the 4 people at the table are growing tomatoes and other vegetables.  And recently I found out that both my sisters had started veggie gardens as well. As different as we all are, we shared a common desire to cultivate a little plot of land.   I don’t know if this has anything to do with the recession or a desire to avoid pesticides. Maybe it’s just part of our ancestral DNA to want to grow things?

My husband and I started our vegetable garden this year. We’ve grown herbs for years but somehow never got around to vegetables. We started with 3 san marzano tomato plants, 3 varieties of bell peppers and a zucchini plant.

In the first week, birds nearly destroyed two of the bell pepper plants.  We had a wired fence around the small garden but nothing at the top to prevent swooping, hungry birds.  By the time the bell peppers recovered, we ran into a second problem. We had not spaced the plants far enough from each other.  The tomato plants were growing out of control and the zucchini had become a weedy monster!  I guess we should have read up on growing vegetables beforehand.

A few weeks after the initial planting, we went on a two-week vacation. When we got back, the zucchini had doubled in size and small red tomatoes dotted the tall vines. The bell peppers were hidden under the zucchini leaves and we have yet to find a full-grown bell pepper.  However, we’ve been rewarded with a lot of fresh tomatoes, zucchini flowers and a few baby zucchinis. We’ve already expanded our garden with 2 more zucchini plants (this time, planted far away from the rest!) and plan to grow garlic, bell peppers (again), more tomatoes, radicchio, garlic and black salsify.

Hopefully by this time next year, we’ll have more vegetables than we know what to do with. This is one hobby that I wished we had started sooner.