Where have we been?

*sigh*

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley. -R Burns

I had every intention of posting to this blog often -- especially since it it laid out in a way that makes brief posts work. And ever since I started it, I have had a hard time getting to my computer at all!

Jack has been waking up with me at 6:30 when I go out to check on the garden. Jack has been staying up all evening -- often way past my bed time. And the garden is taking up most of my free time.

Did I remember to mention that I am exploring gardening this year? I am. Last year, Rod had a go. He decided that while the work isn't unreasonable, he just doesn't find the planning and hovering interesting enough to persevere. That means, if I want the benefits of a garden, it's going to be up to me. Rod is willing to help with the heavy work, but the planning and hovering are up to me.

Since I am fiercely interested in nutrition, high-nutrition/high brix gardening was the obvious choice. What fascinates me is that I am actually enjoying it. Me. The kid who could never stand to have her hands dirty! I still have to wash my hands immediately, but getting in amongst it is turning out to be a lot more fun than I could ever have imagined.

So far we have eggplant, zucchini, butternut squash, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and of course, lots of tomatoes. Jack is also trying to grow strawberries -- but unless we find away to keep the birds out, we're not going to get much joy from them or from the blueberries we planted last year.

The plants are mostly looking pretty happy. I think. They are green and getting bigger. That means they're happy right? They haven't actually said anything... ;) I have made a few semi-fatal mistakes and am learning quite a bit about gardening, but I won't get my hopes up for a great harvest just yet. We have a small garden plot, plus a table of potted vegetables to improve the odds of us getting *some* before th bnnies do. but of course, the table doesn't discourage the birds at all.

On the indoors front, Jack is now on severely restricted screen time. When Rod was so ill for the last year, he simply had no energy to do other things with Jack, so he and Jack sat for hours, back to back, playing on their computers. Jack seems to have lost the knack for entertaining himself in any other way and has started to try to refuse to get off the computer to come to dinner, to play with friends, or to go to bed. He spends the time he isn't on the computer talking about the computer or whining. Ugh. My idea of a nightmare.

But Rod went off his blood pressure medications several weeks ago and is feeling much better! He is able to move around comfortably, the pain is mostly gone. Once he got a good look at Jack's behavior without the veil of pain over his eyes, he agreed that this was completely unacceptable. So Jack gets two hours a day of screen time -- one hour on one game and one hour on the other, but never without at least one hour between them. The time is going to shrink over time, but he was doing this for 6 to 9 hours some days, so this is a dramatic change. He's still pouting and whining, but he is a good kid and he turns off the computer promptly and while he looks extremely sad, he doesn't actually argue.

And now, of course, I am late for work! But I'll try to get back here tomorrow morniong for a short report! (This short report thing is a whole new way of thinking abouit blogging. It may take a while to get the hang of it. Thanks for your patience.)