Today I planted my seeds! The weather here is still pretty cool, so I only planted a few things today: tomatoes (supice and brandywine), broccoli, cilantro (slow bolt variety), carrots, onions, and Kentucky Wonder green beans. I'm super excited. In another month or so, when it's significantly warmer out, I'll plant my peppers, squash, eggplant, basil, and cucumber. And then when fall starts, I'll have all new things to plant, like pumpkins and garlic. Mmm. So, my first veggie seeds have been sown and watered. Yay! Now, we wait.
I have a weird feeling that this may be one of the most important projects I ever do...important for me personally. I can't think of any other project that I've dedicated so much time to or researched for so long. And I'm actually going through with it, which means it must really be important to me. Someone once told me that unless something is actually a part of your life, you don't really believe in it. Like, if you talk about how recycling is important but don't actually recycle, you clearly don't value it as much as you say. That piece of wisdom has always stuck with me. And we do recycle, thank you very much. Anywho, I've been on my high horse about food for so long, and now I can realize for myself that it is actually important to me. It's so important to me that I've started a garden of food, even though I've never had much success growing anything because I get lazy and forget to water the plants. But that won't happen this time, I now know....too much is at stake for me. I've worked too hard too long to let this thing slip out from under me. There was something about sticking those tiny seeds into the ground and covering them with the soil I had mixed myself. They're little lives that will give me life, in more ways than just food nutrients. Those plants and I are part of a cycle with each other and the earth. That means something. And I think their growth will give me new confidence to try other new things and perhaps cure me just a little of my fear of failure. I'm not gonna let those little guys down.
I don't care to get too deep into the conversation about the healthcare bill, mostly because conversations about the bill are scarcely actually about healthcare. But I would like to say this: we need change.And, health insurance should not be linked to employment. Period. Employers shouldn't have to help pay premiums. Self-employed and unemployed people shouldn't have to wonder how they'll get good coverage.And how about this? What if we didn't need so much healthcare all the time?1. Eat fresh veggies and move around for at least 30 minutes each day.2. Don't eat processed food.3. Drink plenty of water and don't have too much soda or juice.4. Don't eat so much sugar and sodium.5. Increase your chances of not needing the doctor so much.Americans spend too much on healthcare and too little on food. We eat cheap calories and pay for it by having all sorts of diet-related health issues. So...while Congress spends a bajillion years trying to figure out a way to make changes in the way we do healthcare, let's all eat and live better, for our health.
So I've been researching and talking about starting my own vegetable garden for around 8 months, and now the time has finally come for me to actually do it. This is really exciting and a big deal for me, because I have this crippling fear of failure that sometimes keeps me from trying something totally new. It's not very often that I jump into a project that I know nothing about...especially if it's a big project. I mean, trying a new recipe or going to a party with strangers is no big deal....but for me, deciding to grow my own food is. I went through kind an emotional rollercoaster as it got closer to time for me to build the garden because I was afraid I was going to chicken out and not do it...for fear of it not going well. But, of course that's stupid and I know this, so I buckled down and started it anyway. And, here I am doing it and it feels so good! Yesterday, Doug helped me build the frame for our raised bed veggie garden, and today we added the soil mixture. Here's what we've had to buy so far:
3 cedar planks: $45
landscaping fabric: $10
galvanized nails: $3
soil mixture stuff: $45
So...right around $100 for the materials to build a raised bed. Cedar is naturally rot resistant, so we used it instead of any kind of treated wood, because chemicals from treated wood can seep into your soil. Yuck. Most gardening people in my research suggested using 1/3 existing soil (we have red clay, so we bought topsoil), 1/3 compost and 1/3 peat moss for the perfect mixture. Compost can take weeks or even months to decompose enough to be usable, so we bought some. But, we'll start a pile in the yard to use for next season's garden. Build your frame to whatever size you like (mine's 4 ft. x 8 ft.), place it over some landscaping fabric, and mix your soil in. You're ready to plant! Yay! On to seed ordering.
I've been thinking a lot lately about home and what it's like to really be from a place. Our photography clients ask Doug and me all the time where we're from and I always tell them I was born and raised right here on Mobile Bay. And I've come to realize just how uncommon that is...that a person like me comes back home to put her own roots down in the same place where her parents and grandparents put their roots. It's something I never thought I would do, but knowing a place and feeling connected to a place means more than we know. Anytime I go out to the grocery store or take a walk through our neighborhood (the same neighborhood I lived in for 15 years as a child) I'm surrounded by my own personal history and the history of the people closest to me. It means something to drive by a place and tell a friend, "That's where I used to ride my bike with my friend Anna," or, "That's the treehouse my dad built for me," or "Down there is the railroad my grandfather worked on during the Great Depression." It means something to us...deep down in our soul bellies...to call a place home. Not just a house and the company of those we love, but an actual place. The bay, the beaches, the oak trees....they're the same natural surroundings that inspired by grandparents to paint and encouraged my parents to raise us here. My own children will be the 4th generation of kids to grow up learning to ride a bike along a coastline, swim in the ocean, and throw an anchor from the bow of a boat. We'll get up early and go fishing as a family, like I did with my parents, and we'll be fishing in the same waters, by the same trees. I remember what my town looked like 20 years ago, and my parents tell me how it looked 40 years before that. My dad takes me to the railroad tracks that he walked along to get to school, and he'll be able to show his grandchildren those same tracks. My parents' back-in-my-day stories will have so much more interest and relevance to my children because it all took place right here. I mean, that's pretty amazing, I think. And I think that kind of thing should be more common....people should be more connected to each other, of course (we're desparate for that), but also to the places in which they live. I think it's more important than we realize. 
So, we had burgers tonight from some local grass fed beef. It tasted very different from regular supermarket beef....I actually didn't like it very much. But, we're going to try some different cuts of beef and maybe try some from a different farm and see what we think. It's very lean, like deer meat, and even when well-done looks more whitish than we're used to. A very interesting experiment, indeed.
Doug and I redid our bathroom this weekend. It started out as a small project in which we were only going to put in a bath vent/fan thingy. And then....we scraped the peeling paint off the ceiling and repainted it. And then....we decided to go ahead and repaint the walls. And then we replaced the vanity because it looked terrible with all the new changes. It was all crooked and had been installed incorrectly and sank down into the tile about 2 inches, so it was short for us tall folks. And somebody along the way had cleaned the countertop with Comet or something terrible, so it had lost its shine and looked really grungy. So, bathroom makeover. But, the thing is, we didn't really plan on all this happening, so we don't have any before photos. You just have to take our word for it that it looks ten thousand times better now. We added a fan, painted, replaced the vanity and countertop, and purchased a fancy new shower curtain all for under $700. Not too bad. Also, we built up the floor under the new vanity, so it's 2 inches (at least) taller than it was. And here's how it turned out!
Went to Lowe's today and looked at paint swatches for the kitchen. I'm thinking this icey aqua blue color with the green glass tile backsplash. If not green, then plain white subway tiles.
Also, I read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food this week. It only took me two days! It's a good read and actually had a lot of new information for me. He takes a pretty hard look at how we've somehow in our eating come to focus on nutrients, rather than on foods: "Eat more fiber." Not,
"Eat more broccoli." Anywho, I highly recommend it. An excellent and easy read.
