My Seedlings

I might have mentioned before that I have a grow room in my basement to coax seeds into seedlings for the garden. I planted some early seeds on the second of February, and most of them have shown at least a little growth. I have cardoon (a relative of artichoke, except you eat the leaf stalks), mountain mint, yarrow, hyssop, lovage, lavender, and rosemary in a 72-cell seedling tray.

The lavender and rosemary are going very slowly, but both have at least one seedling up. The cardoon might need to be transplanted sooner rather than later because it’s big. I didn’t think the cardoon would come up so soon because I’ve had such bad luck with it before, but no, it popped up like the alarm clock had just gone off.

Growing seedlings helps me through a cold winter. Whether it’s the thrill of growing green things, the brightness of a room full of fluorescent grow bulbs, or the reminder that Spring will eventually arrive, it’s one of the best things for the winter blahs I’ve done.

One thing that worries me, though, is that I’m not writing. I’m burned out on writing, and have a lot of doubt about how good my writing is. But at least I have a hobby to sustain me.

My Dream Home

Daily writing prompt

Write about your dream home.

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My original dream home was the home I grew up in. I grew up in an older, architect-designed (as opposed to kit home) place with big bedrooms and plenty of project space in the basement. It was full of beautiful wooden trim and old metal heating registers and high ceilings. My parents did a lot of things with it I wouldn’t have, like torn out butler’s cabinets and bookcases built into the walls, but it was a beautiful house when we finally refinished it.

The house I currently live in is an echo of that house, a newer house (built 1919 rather than 1906), with simpler trim and a dining room set off from the living room by glass-paned French doors. The build is similar, although there are only three bedrooms instead of four.

My dream home has changed over the years, as I have gotten older and look forward to getting older still. My current dream home would be all on one level to help with mobility issues. It would be universal design, where the design would facilitate living independently without looking institutional. No stairs, accessible bathrooms, open floorplan, lever-style door knobs, and the like. It would also be energy efficient, perhaps built into the side of a hill or with passive solar heating design. A dream home would have a rocket mass stove in the living room to heat up the area and provide a focal point for the room (they’re very pretty pieces of masonry). And it would have a greenhouse where I could start seeds for the year, and a yard I could landscape.

I dream big. I’m not going to find a house like this, especially if I stay in Maryville. I could build one, but it wouldn’t sell well if I ever had to leave it. Plus I’m not rich, and this would be an expensive build. So my dream house is best left to dreaming about.

Daily writing prompt

Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?

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In the US, the right-wing has laid claim to the word “patriotic”. It has become associated with a culture obsessed with guns and taking away others’ rights. I have a knee-jerk reaction to the word now.

But America has had a long history of civil rights, and until this administration has been making steady progress on civil rights. Not fast enough, but in its absence definitely missed. If I am willing to fight for the days of civil rights, does this make me patriotic?

I think so. I think I can call myself a patriot wanting to bring back America’s days of being that shining light on the hill rather than the shitscape it currently is.

The Boring Story of How I Broke the Law

Daily writing prompt

Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

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This will not be an exciting story. I haven’t broken any major laws accidentally (or on purpose), but I did once leave my vehicle registration for too long, and I was driving on expired stickers. I didn’t get stopped by the cops, so no drama. I discovered the problem some two months after they expired, however, so I could have gotten stopped by the cops at any given time.

I realized I was waiting for a postcard reminding me that my registration was due, and I had never gotten one. This is not an excuse, according to the license bureau.

Fixing it was as simple as going to the license facility and standing in line, all the time hoping that a cop wouldn’t find my car parked out front with an expired sticker. They did not, but I had to pay a fine for waiting too long to get the sticker. I found out that someone had transcribed my license number wrong on a form and that was why I didn’t get a postcard.

This is definitely not one of my more exciting stories.

Daily writing prompt

If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?

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I can’t imagine why anyone would want to write a biography about me, much less buy one. I live an ordinary life, one where too many things came easily to me, and one in which I found my niche and settled there. All the adversity was in my childhood (and there was enough there for one lifetime). All the interesting times in my life were in my twenties, and they weren’t that interesting. I suppose one could write about how I’ve managed to live with bipolar disorder. Even that has been easy for me; my medications for the most part have been effective. I live a blessed life, one which does not lend itself well to biography. I like it this way; I’m much too old for drama these days.

Given that, the only name I can think of for my biography would be “An Ordinary Life”, a title that’s as boring as my life.

Toffee

Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite candy?

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My favorite candy is toffee, chocolate covered or not. I like the caramelized sugar and butter flavor and the brittle texture (although I like soft toffee, I prefer the hard kind). I find it hard to resist toffee, and I have to be careful not to eat the whole tin.

I can remember the last time I had toffee. It was a Heath Bar blizzard from Dairy Queen some weeks ago. Heath bars aren’t even the best toffee, but it satisfied my urges. I prefer homemade toffee, but I get that so seldom.

This post is making me hungry for toffee, especially the toffee in the picture above, which looks homemade. There’s no place to get it around here, so I will have to imagine it.

I Do Worry About the Government

Yesterday I wrote that I was not too concerned about life because I’ve survived a lot. That is a lie — I am very concerned with what the US government is currently doing. I don’t care if Elon Musk is trying to save us money — he has no right to have his fingers in the government agencies to begin with. The end does not justify the means. Trump’s executive orders make him an autocrat and the US a dictatorship.

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I don’t know where our government is. I don’t know why Congress hasn’t stepped in and prevented Musk’s plundering of information. If there is no way to prevent this, there are fatal flaws in our government based on trust of a president. What’s stopping a president from ruling by executive order? Nothing, apparently. Trust has eroded, and chaos isn’t far away.

I realize I have to live in-between these moments, within the chaos, and find joy outside the news. I try my best.

Don’t Panic

Daily writing prompt

How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?

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As I get older, I get less stressed about the outside world. Maybe this is a bad thing these days with all the chaos in our government, but I feel like I’ve survived everything that life has thrown at me so far, including some things that should very well have killed me (like getting in the car with an impaired driver).

If I can’t do anything about life throws at me, then there’s nothing to gain by panic. I will survive, or I will not, and if I do not, then I won’t know what happened. It’s a fatalistic stance, I guess. But I think it’s a natural consequence of getting older.

Planting Seeds

I’m planting seeds for a spring herb garden today. Just a few for now; it’s early times yet for seed starting. I received some herb seeds (lots of herb seeds) from my sister for Christmas. I’m converting one particular raised bed in my neglected garden into an herb garden.

I have a grow room in my basement. The shelves were already existent; we set fluorescent lights over each of the shelves and put some heat mats in. There’s a reflective surface on the opposite wall so that the light doesn’t lose itself in a corner. It’s a near-ideal setup for starting seeds, although it could use a little cleaning up.

The challenge is going to be keeping the garden weeded. I don’t have the stamina for weeding, so it falls to my husband, who doesn’t really recognize weeds from herbs. I will mark the herbs well, so that he can find them. Wish me luck.

If I Got Great, Fantastic News …

Daily writing prompt

You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?

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I haven’t had great, amazingly fantastic news in so long, I have to use my imagination to think about what I would do if I got it. Luckily I have a great imagination. Maybe this is a factor in getting older, but I’ve gotten more bad news (like people dying) than good news these last several years.

Wow paper background with colorful geometric confetti. Vector illustration.

What would be great, amazingly fantastic news? Winning the lottery or snagging an agent, winning an award at work or selling a lot of books. Maybe I expect more from great news than I did when I was younger; I’m not sure.

The first thing I would do if I got great, amazingly fantastic news is let my husband know. Probably by text, because I’m not a big one for phone calls. It’s not a terribly exciting answer, but there it is. His response would be “Yay!” because he’s not an excitable person.

We’d probably celebrate later at a local restaurant, and we would discuss what to do with this great, amazingly fantastic (I love that phrase) thing that befell us, because even great, amazingly fantastic things have consequences.

I’m going to sit here and think of great, amazingly fantastic news. I’ll let you know if anything comes my way. After I tell my husband.