March
My initial main reason for making this entry is so I can make a "tights" tag for my reference next year. Every year I want to buy some new tights when they go 75% off at Target (or wherever, but Target usually has the cheapest/best colors) and every year I can't remember when to check. I don't go to Target but every couple months, so it's easy to miss the window. Well, I hit it the other day. Mid-March: it's tights time!
Otherwise, I am busy. Lit by Shadows edits are here and I'm feeling great about them, but also so very nervous. I'm 2/3rds of the way through them, so soon it will be out of my hands again and I can distract myself in the garden with spring plantings.
I joined Mike the Gardener's Seeds of the Month Club in the fall, which means I now have over 30 packs of seeds for super cheap. (Let me know if anyone wants a referral code.) That's good since I have no idea what I'm doing. Last year I planted two tomato seedlings, 3 herb seedlings, and seeds for broccoli, spinach, kohlrabi, and radishes. All the seedlings thrived. All the broccoli was eaten by cutworms except one, which produced a small head, but mostly I just got leaves, which did make a few lovely salads along with the tomatoes. The spinach and radishes never came up. I let the neighbor kid help me water and I think he drowned them in his enthusiasm. I don't know what the trouble was with the kohlrabi; I planted that on a different day. So this year I now know to make collars for my brassicas to keep the cutworms away, and to water gently (and alone). Last year I really didn't do anything right, I just threw stuff in the ground and saw what happened. This year I plan to get some better soil and some mulch, but otherwise I'm still just going to throw some seeds in the ground and see what does well, and figure out problems as they arise. It's too overwhelming to try and do everything right as a beginner, easier to try it first and go from there, I think. I'm excited to see what comes up, anyway.
I have a new ally in my Ebay business, a guy I met at the auction house who has noticed me coming month after month and sometimes competing for books with him. He's been selling books for years, but he has too many to handle so he asked if I'd like to broker some for him. Couldn't hurt to look, I thought. I didn't know what to expect. When I got to his house, my mind was kind of blown. His entire basement is packed with books. Rooms and rooms. Boxes stacked floor to ceiling, walls lined with shelves...the stuff that antiquarian dreams are made of. It's worked out really well since I've had trouble getting good inventory since I can't drive. (Although it's a goal of mine to get my license, now that I'm here where traffic is SO much less intimidating than in Orlando.) It's also just fun to look through such a great collection and learn from it and from talking to him, and to feel like I have a "coworker" of sorts, along with my hometown auctioneer, I guess, whom I've also made friends with. How I love this area!
I'm looking forward to next month, when my revisions will hopefully be turned in and go on to line edits, and we're expecting lots of visitors--first some friends of Dade's (well, and mine, just even moreso Dade's) from Orlando, then my mom and sister, and then my former Chamberlin's coworker and good friend Heather and her family, who will be just over the WV border for a few weeks when her husband has some job training. I'm so excited about all of these visits and the lovely weather of April and May. I also have plans to go to NYC and visit my editor and hang out with Crissa Chappell, though...we will see if I end up getting my line edits and some crazy deadline then. I only paid $2.50 for bus tickets, so, I will cancel it if I need to.
Now, to pour myself a glass of my homemade kombucha (sooo good) and get back to these edits...
Otherwise, I am busy. Lit by Shadows edits are here and I'm feeling great about them, but also so very nervous. I'm 2/3rds of the way through them, so soon it will be out of my hands again and I can distract myself in the garden with spring plantings.
I joined Mike the Gardener's Seeds of the Month Club in the fall, which means I now have over 30 packs of seeds for super cheap. (Let me know if anyone wants a referral code.) That's good since I have no idea what I'm doing. Last year I planted two tomato seedlings, 3 herb seedlings, and seeds for broccoli, spinach, kohlrabi, and radishes. All the seedlings thrived. All the broccoli was eaten by cutworms except one, which produced a small head, but mostly I just got leaves, which did make a few lovely salads along with the tomatoes. The spinach and radishes never came up. I let the neighbor kid help me water and I think he drowned them in his enthusiasm. I don't know what the trouble was with the kohlrabi; I planted that on a different day. So this year I now know to make collars for my brassicas to keep the cutworms away, and to water gently (and alone). Last year I really didn't do anything right, I just threw stuff in the ground and saw what happened. This year I plan to get some better soil and some mulch, but otherwise I'm still just going to throw some seeds in the ground and see what does well, and figure out problems as they arise. It's too overwhelming to try and do everything right as a beginner, easier to try it first and go from there, I think. I'm excited to see what comes up, anyway.
I have a new ally in my Ebay business, a guy I met at the auction house who has noticed me coming month after month and sometimes competing for books with him. He's been selling books for years, but he has too many to handle so he asked if I'd like to broker some for him. Couldn't hurt to look, I thought. I didn't know what to expect. When I got to his house, my mind was kind of blown. His entire basement is packed with books. Rooms and rooms. Boxes stacked floor to ceiling, walls lined with shelves...the stuff that antiquarian dreams are made of. It's worked out really well since I've had trouble getting good inventory since I can't drive. (Although it's a goal of mine to get my license, now that I'm here where traffic is SO much less intimidating than in Orlando.) It's also just fun to look through such a great collection and learn from it and from talking to him, and to feel like I have a "coworker" of sorts, along with my hometown auctioneer, I guess, whom I've also made friends with. How I love this area!
I'm looking forward to next month, when my revisions will hopefully be turned in and go on to line edits, and we're expecting lots of visitors--first some friends of Dade's (well, and mine, just even moreso Dade's) from Orlando, then my mom and sister, and then my former Chamberlin's coworker and good friend Heather and her family, who will be just over the WV border for a few weeks when her husband has some job training. I'm so excited about all of these visits and the lovely weather of April and May. I also have plans to go to NYC and visit my editor and hang out with Crissa Chappell, though...we will see if I end up getting my line edits and some crazy deadline then. I only paid $2.50 for bus tickets, so, I will cancel it if I need to.
Now, to pour myself a glass of my homemade kombucha (sooo good) and get back to these edits...