So this is 2012
Well then, 2012 you ungrateful bastard, be gone. This is a long one, bring popcorn.
Year in review, January was the first month of spring semester and kicked off with one hell of a snow sprinkle cutting me off from campus on the first day of classes. It was however quite beautiful and I love me a good snow. My German car does not. It wallows in splendorus pig hood in even the smallest amount of real snow. It is truly ridiculous but as we get less than a week of proper snow here it is still a very good car for me. Seth worked a huge amount of overtime this month, just like the December before it and was notable for his exhaustion. It also rained. My favorite project from this month was a paper cube with a human brain drawn on it in tiny pen and given volume with tiny dots. It was displayed on three 50 cal shells as a reference to TBI and the problems that arise from it.
February, second month of spring term and well into the swing of things class wise. I took drawing foundations 2 and design three d for a staggering amount of random information. I may never recover. Seth worked slightly less overtime this month and mostly slept. February is all about rain here and it certainly lived up to it. I did a set of pastel studies that resulted in a finished piece of a winter garden with lilac trees turning into antler bushes. I discovered a love for pastels and a complete inability to control them to me specifics. I was infatuated but cross.
April, third month of spring semester and early planting season around here. I put in cucumbers, beans, and two more raised beds. Our chickens got a larger enclosure and took over one whole corner of the back yard much to their delight. They also started making hidden nests. We pulled ten eggs out of one tucked under the arborvitae against the fence. Pruning ensued. Much much pruning. I got the last of that hideous butterfly bush out of the ground and did happy dances of joy for the victory against hybrid invasive plants. We also pruned up the rhodies, and did another round of butcher the thing in the front yard. It's huge and unknown but puts out a variety of suckers that is astounding. My project for this month was a pair of carousel animals flanking a central cameo that I need to redo still. It was both lovely and infuriating. I still don't want to talk about it.
May, fourth month of semester and final month. Excessive grass mowing begins as rain slowly gives way to sun and the wretched stuff shoots forth with the vigor of drunken youth. Seth traded in the gas powered mower for a second hand push variety that I have fallen in love with. I mow twice a week and feel quite proud of the tidy lawn in front. The back yard however grows balder as the season progresses and I begin to look around for shade resistant grass seed not bundled with chemical fertilizers and herbicides. Two months later I would find some but my then it is past grass planting season and we are using the back yard regularly so it will wait for next season. Tomatoes go in, as does a smattering of other vegetables and some primroses for nostalgia. My finals piece for design is a camouflage poncho suspended from the ceiling by fishing line with nicknames on the outside in blocky vinyl letters. The inside has photographs from friends and from Seth paired with excerpts from letters sent home by soldiers copied out in sharpie. It was a very successful piece that spooked the class. Several of them climbed into it like they were supposed to but just as many refused, stating that it felt like a person alredy and being inside it would be creepy. Two points for me.
June, summer break and the farmers market starts again. I love that institution more than any other part of summer. The vendors and the vegetables, meeting the people who make your food from nothing. The bakeries, and the cheeses are charming and I am charmed. Seth has overtime still but we go to each market for the weeks shopping and to spend some time together, it's been in short supply. The final round of scholarship applications are looming and I am working on them steadily. My garden begins to gather some serious speed and the weeds are annoyingly vibrant. I weed, and weed, and weed, and invite friends over to weed with me. Also there is even more mowing. I am victorious with the mowing.
July, Independence day and it's attendant fireworks are no celebration for us with the complications of Seth's service memories. Coupled with the overtime ramping up to seven ten hour days a week the holiday is brutal this year. We are alive but weary by the time it blows over two weeks later. Our neighborhood is enthusiastic this year and continues to set off the big mortars for days after the day of. My garden is really rocking now and I look forward to harvest time in a few week. Until that is one of my chickens is finally seduced into the carrot bed and denudes it in one day. Full of contained fury for my ruined vegetables we build a higher fence for their pen. She out flies this as well and this time attempts the tomatoes but has little success. My had with tomatoes has proven itself this year in the five foot tall plants that tower over the hundreds of tiny green nodes forming in the leaves. Chickens are no match for this leafy tangle. Neither am I and weeding is called off on account of my sympathies going to the weeds that can live in this bed.
August, heat peaks in this month as is usual but it gets above a hundred several days and that is a very hot summer. My pepper plants go mad and tomatoes not only ramp up further but now tower at eye level. I am afraid to go near that bed, the things look hungry and I have no wish to be fertilizer. The Stupice and Early Girls are just now throwing fruit, closely followed by the Amish Paste and Pear tomatoes. A trickle of fruits turn immediately to a flood. I am buried by tomatoes. Someone come dig me out. The girls ramp up production yet again and we get four eggs a day resulting in a desperate scramble to give away, sell, or illegally gift our friend, family, and complete strangers with produce.
September, the rest of my pitiful harvest trickles in bourn on a tide of tomatoes. The broccoli has long since bolted, along with the celery, and the onions are pitiful. Gone are the hoped for brussles sprouts, cilantro, lettuces, beets, carrots and cucumbers. Even zucchini failed to produce this year. All we got were a hand full of beans, a scary amount of tomatoes, peppers, and decent yield on the potato beds. Also a few handfuls of green beans. Next year I am scaling back to only what I know will do well and planting most of that a good deal earlier. The end of this month marks the starting point of the fall semester. I start color and process, and survey of western art history 1. Both were intimidating to start with and one came with a gigantic book. Seth has be now been on almost solid overtime for near to two months. Things are becoming strained, and his company is making some very unwise choices.
October, Second month of fall semester and classes roll to a steady pace. Art history is proving to be simple for me as it requires the type of memorize and regurgitate I am good at doing. Also my Prof. is entertaining and enthusiastic, taking time to explain and direct the cultures involved. Color and process is involved, my instructor here is a meticulous person that tends to tangents and documentation. I spend most of my homework time doing all the precise steps she ask for and documenting them to turn in. It is also the first month the Seth is on medical leave from his work. They stuck him with mental distress and set up short term disability leave because he stubbornly refused to give them a reason to fire him. Two weeks later half the shop was gone and replaced by temp workers. We scrambled to figure out what to do next.
November, Third week of fall semester and my Lovers birthday. Things are stable if tense with the finances in constant flux. Mid terms go without a hitch and I soar into the process half of my lab class. The projects get progressively more complex and more are added. Each one takes over sixty hours and by the end of the month there are three open with varying deadlines. Seth is reaping the benefits of the last grueling year and reassessing his professional life. I am working my arse off and praying it won't kill me before I get my hands round the neck of the scheduler.
December, fourth month of fall semester. I am exhausted and deadlines loom. Our situation hasn't changed much and it preys on our minds although we have enough of a cushion to last into the new year a couple months. Given the opportunity we do the paperwork for both a refi on the house for a much better rate, and a long term disability claim through the company. Welding has proven to be something Seth needs to get away from so alternate careers are sought. I crawl through finals and wind up the semester on the 21 of December amid the celebrations and merry making. I am very tired now, also working up to a fine state of anemia that I don't notice until I start having dizzy spells. I deeply resent being fallible, there is so much work yet to do.
The beginning of a new year means seeds. New plants for a new harvest and beautiful green growing things I look forward to all year. Soon the grass will grow. Soon the buds will sprout. Soon...
Year in review, January was the first month of spring semester and kicked off with one hell of a snow sprinkle cutting me off from campus on the first day of classes. It was however quite beautiful and I love me a good snow. My German car does not. It wallows in splendorus pig hood in even the smallest amount of real snow. It is truly ridiculous but as we get less than a week of proper snow here it is still a very good car for me. Seth worked a huge amount of overtime this month, just like the December before it and was notable for his exhaustion. It also rained. My favorite project from this month was a paper cube with a human brain drawn on it in tiny pen and given volume with tiny dots. It was displayed on three 50 cal shells as a reference to TBI and the problems that arise from it.
February, second month of spring term and well into the swing of things class wise. I took drawing foundations 2 and design three d for a staggering amount of random information. I may never recover. Seth worked slightly less overtime this month and mostly slept. February is all about rain here and it certainly lived up to it. I did a set of pastel studies that resulted in a finished piece of a winter garden with lilac trees turning into antler bushes. I discovered a love for pastels and a complete inability to control them to me specifics. I was infatuated but cross.
April, third month of spring semester and early planting season around here. I put in cucumbers, beans, and two more raised beds. Our chickens got a larger enclosure and took over one whole corner of the back yard much to their delight. They also started making hidden nests. We pulled ten eggs out of one tucked under the arborvitae against the fence. Pruning ensued. Much much pruning. I got the last of that hideous butterfly bush out of the ground and did happy dances of joy for the victory against hybrid invasive plants. We also pruned up the rhodies, and did another round of butcher the thing in the front yard. It's huge and unknown but puts out a variety of suckers that is astounding. My project for this month was a pair of carousel animals flanking a central cameo that I need to redo still. It was both lovely and infuriating. I still don't want to talk about it.
May, fourth month of semester and final month. Excessive grass mowing begins as rain slowly gives way to sun and the wretched stuff shoots forth with the vigor of drunken youth. Seth traded in the gas powered mower for a second hand push variety that I have fallen in love with. I mow twice a week and feel quite proud of the tidy lawn in front. The back yard however grows balder as the season progresses and I begin to look around for shade resistant grass seed not bundled with chemical fertilizers and herbicides. Two months later I would find some but my then it is past grass planting season and we are using the back yard regularly so it will wait for next season. Tomatoes go in, as does a smattering of other vegetables and some primroses for nostalgia. My finals piece for design is a camouflage poncho suspended from the ceiling by fishing line with nicknames on the outside in blocky vinyl letters. The inside has photographs from friends and from Seth paired with excerpts from letters sent home by soldiers copied out in sharpie. It was a very successful piece that spooked the class. Several of them climbed into it like they were supposed to but just as many refused, stating that it felt like a person alredy and being inside it would be creepy. Two points for me.
June, summer break and the farmers market starts again. I love that institution more than any other part of summer. The vendors and the vegetables, meeting the people who make your food from nothing. The bakeries, and the cheeses are charming and I am charmed. Seth has overtime still but we go to each market for the weeks shopping and to spend some time together, it's been in short supply. The final round of scholarship applications are looming and I am working on them steadily. My garden begins to gather some serious speed and the weeds are annoyingly vibrant. I weed, and weed, and weed, and invite friends over to weed with me. Also there is even more mowing. I am victorious with the mowing.
July, Independence day and it's attendant fireworks are no celebration for us with the complications of Seth's service memories. Coupled with the overtime ramping up to seven ten hour days a week the holiday is brutal this year. We are alive but weary by the time it blows over two weeks later. Our neighborhood is enthusiastic this year and continues to set off the big mortars for days after the day of. My garden is really rocking now and I look forward to harvest time in a few week. Until that is one of my chickens is finally seduced into the carrot bed and denudes it in one day. Full of contained fury for my ruined vegetables we build a higher fence for their pen. She out flies this as well and this time attempts the tomatoes but has little success. My had with tomatoes has proven itself this year in the five foot tall plants that tower over the hundreds of tiny green nodes forming in the leaves. Chickens are no match for this leafy tangle. Neither am I and weeding is called off on account of my sympathies going to the weeds that can live in this bed.
August, heat peaks in this month as is usual but it gets above a hundred several days and that is a very hot summer. My pepper plants go mad and tomatoes not only ramp up further but now tower at eye level. I am afraid to go near that bed, the things look hungry and I have no wish to be fertilizer. The Stupice and Early Girls are just now throwing fruit, closely followed by the Amish Paste and Pear tomatoes. A trickle of fruits turn immediately to a flood. I am buried by tomatoes. Someone come dig me out. The girls ramp up production yet again and we get four eggs a day resulting in a desperate scramble to give away, sell, or illegally gift our friend, family, and complete strangers with produce.
September, the rest of my pitiful harvest trickles in bourn on a tide of tomatoes. The broccoli has long since bolted, along with the celery, and the onions are pitiful. Gone are the hoped for brussles sprouts, cilantro, lettuces, beets, carrots and cucumbers. Even zucchini failed to produce this year. All we got were a hand full of beans, a scary amount of tomatoes, peppers, and decent yield on the potato beds. Also a few handfuls of green beans. Next year I am scaling back to only what I know will do well and planting most of that a good deal earlier. The end of this month marks the starting point of the fall semester. I start color and process, and survey of western art history 1. Both were intimidating to start with and one came with a gigantic book. Seth has be now been on almost solid overtime for near to two months. Things are becoming strained, and his company is making some very unwise choices.
October, Second month of fall semester and classes roll to a steady pace. Art history is proving to be simple for me as it requires the type of memorize and regurgitate I am good at doing. Also my Prof. is entertaining and enthusiastic, taking time to explain and direct the cultures involved. Color and process is involved, my instructor here is a meticulous person that tends to tangents and documentation. I spend most of my homework time doing all the precise steps she ask for and documenting them to turn in. It is also the first month the Seth is on medical leave from his work. They stuck him with mental distress and set up short term disability leave because he stubbornly refused to give them a reason to fire him. Two weeks later half the shop was gone and replaced by temp workers. We scrambled to figure out what to do next.
November, Third week of fall semester and my Lovers birthday. Things are stable if tense with the finances in constant flux. Mid terms go without a hitch and I soar into the process half of my lab class. The projects get progressively more complex and more are added. Each one takes over sixty hours and by the end of the month there are three open with varying deadlines. Seth is reaping the benefits of the last grueling year and reassessing his professional life. I am working my arse off and praying it won't kill me before I get my hands round the neck of the scheduler.
December, fourth month of fall semester. I am exhausted and deadlines loom. Our situation hasn't changed much and it preys on our minds although we have enough of a cushion to last into the new year a couple months. Given the opportunity we do the paperwork for both a refi on the house for a much better rate, and a long term disability claim through the company. Welding has proven to be something Seth needs to get away from so alternate careers are sought. I crawl through finals and wind up the semester on the 21 of December amid the celebrations and merry making. I am very tired now, also working up to a fine state of anemia that I don't notice until I start having dizzy spells. I deeply resent being fallible, there is so much work yet to do.
The beginning of a new year means seeds. New plants for a new harvest and beautiful green growing things I look forward to all year. Soon the grass will grow. Soon the buds will sprout. Soon...