Winter Gardens: It grows, I do nothing

 

It has been months since I mentioned the winter garden hasn’t it?  That probably has something to do with the fact that, at least here, a winter garden is a hands-off process.  I don’t have to water the garden as it either rains or dew it sufficient to keep the plants happy, I don’t have to tend to the plants very often seeing as their not giant bushes overwhelming nearby plants (like zucchini and tomatoes.)  We planted it and promptly forgot about it until we need something like spinach, bok choy, or celery.

Oh, there was one pest… one that has somehow managed to survive the below freezing temperatures:

Beer traps don’t seem to work as well in the winter and either did nightly pick-ups.  We finally broke down and picked up some iron pellets which make them stop eating, but that doesn’t put an end to the breeding these pests do.  Who know slugs were so big on sex?  The only real victim of the slugs has been the lettuce and cauliflower.  Their leaves have been chewed all up and slug slime covers what is left, which means what cauliflower I have is tiny and, so far, inedible.

Appealing?
too small

So far we’ve eaten spinach, bok choy, celery, arugula, and some lettuce from the garden.  The carrots are still too small as are the onions.  Despite the lack of lettuce I’m still calling this season’s garden a success

Things I found at my parent’s house: TMNT part 1

I spent the winter holidays at my parent’s house.  This is the house I grew up in and it still has quite a few of my things lying around; stowed away in boxes piled up in closets and the garage.

Every time I visit I go through a little more of it.  In 2009 I went through about ten boxes of books and ended up giving away more than half of them.  Last year I finished going through the books and “culled the herd” down to about a box of them.  (Which will be highlighted in future post, maybe?)  I also went through some of the toys from my youth that had managed to stick around this long and I found quite a few Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I believe all of these are first runs of the toys, though I’m not sure.  I never was too concerned about the collectibility or resale value of my toys.  I got them to play with them!  Beyond these figures I’m pretty sure there is still a box or so out in my parents garage that has the Blimp and the Party wagon in it.

Wow, you can really notice the dust with the flash on.  These things have been in boxes for over 15 years or so, I think.  They’re all in remarkably good condition though!  All the limbs are movable and the accessories still seem to be in good condition.  I thought with the heat int he desert they would have dried out and crumbled a little more.  Strangest thing I’ve noticed so far?  Several of the toys have a sticky residue from when they were covered in ooze?!

Next time:  Vidja Games!

2011 Goals

I didn’t put this up immediately for two reasons: first, everyone is doing new year’s resolution posts right now and I insist on being “different.”  Second, I wanted to put everything down on “paper,” let it sit awhile and then come back and take a another look at it before finalizing the list.

My goals for the year 2011:

1. Submit writing every month to a publicaton – with the implication being that someone somewhere will publish me

2. Develop, outline, draft and write two short stories

3. Participate in NaNoWriMo

4. Review Latin – Poetry and plays might be the best way to do this

5. Learn algebra – I knew this at one point I need to brush up on my math skills

6. Do the Lake Berryessa two mile swim

7. Bike a century

8. Buy as few new things as possible – this is an attempt to reduce, re-use, recycle, and repair more.

9. Do more with my hobbies (besides gaming) – I have a lot of cool stuff lying around that I could be doing things with, this is what this is here for.

10. Jump out of a plane – I needed something to round out the list!

There you have it folks!  How will I do?  Only 362 days until you find out!

EDIT – I forgot what the real number ten was supposed to be until just now.  I suppose it can be number eleven:

11.  Meditate everyday – I’m specifically thinking of Zazen.

Making Goals You Can Meet

 

Common resolutions

 

This post was supposed to go up two weeks ago, but life has a way of driving you 500+ miles away from your home and dropping you in the middle of “the Happiest Place on Earth” during the “Busiest Time of the Year” (more on that later.)  In the last post I reviewed my goals for 2010, in this post I will be talking about what I learned from making goals and then trying to spend a year accomplishing them.

1.  You have to care about the goal – If you are mentally and emotionally invested in the goal you’ll never meet it.  This was the problem with my skydiving and SCUBA license goals.  These are two things that would be fun to do but they were really just whims, things I’d like to do but have no real reason or purpose behind doing them.

2.  Make goals that can be done with others – Doing things on your own is hard, especially when the task is difficult.  Surrounding yourself with other people makes it easier, they can provide encouragement, advice, support, someone to compete with, etc.  Humans are naturally social (yes, even nerds need occasional human interaction) and harnessing that in-born desire is a great way to insure you meet your goals.  Better yet let those around you know this is a goal and they’ll be sure to provide even more help!

3. Make goals that make sense for tomorrow, not today or yesterday – Do you know where you are going as a person?  What are your professional aspirations?  What do you do in your spare time?  Who are you hanging out with?  These might not seem like important questions when it comes to goal making but they are!  Two of my goals last year (Painting armies and making a gaming table)  didn’t happen because the gaming group I used to spend a great deal of time with split up and my tabletop wargaming came to a dead halt.  With no one to game with there wasn’t any incentive to spend my limited free time painting tiny metal soldiers.  I knew that before the goal was made, but felt guilty having these things lying around and not using them.  That is a perfect example for planning goals for yesterday instead of tomorrow.

4. Make goals that scale –  New Year’s resolutions or goals are supposed to be life altering acts of improvement.  Not your to-do list for the first month of January.  You can make said goals but there isn’t much of a point putting them on a list.  A goal to get in shape, while on everyone’s list, is perfect as a year-long goal.  It scales nicely and is easily broken down into steps.

And that is it.  If your goals/resolutions follow these four guidelines you (and I) should find meeting your goals easier than you thought.  It goes without saying that it won’t be easy to change your life, just easier than it would have been before you read this =P

Next:  My goals for 2011

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